


honey in the hale

by mosaicofhearts



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Slow Burn, Small Towns, in which handyman eddie meets spiraling comedian richie and they both learn to heal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-05 03:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 61,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25057513
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mosaicofhearts/pseuds/mosaicofhearts
Summary: Derry, Maine looks like the sort of place where people come to die. There’s maybe an element of truth in that which sends an electrifying shiver roaming along Richie’s spine, a fist closing tightly around his erratically beating heart for a moment, releasing on a breath that is far too audible in the quiet of the car. Acid burns its way up his gullet and he swallows it back down laboriously, clenches his eyes shut against the sudden onslaught of visceral emotion. Whiskey sour breath; an icy certainty that you will never be warm again; the fear of forgetting at odds with the pain of remembering.---Recovery isn't supposed to be beautiful. Somehow, Derry makes it so anyway.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 63
Kudos: 81





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> whew, so, i'm finally bringing this baby to life! this started off as me wanting handyman, small town eddie, and has turned into something a lot bigger.
> 
> i have taken some liberties with derry, because i needed a small town that could reasonably be fairly secluded, and in my research maine came up anyway, so! this is set in derry, but with some tweaks (and no clown)!
> 
> there are a few warnings for this fic, as it deals with some heavy topics. at it's heart it is a story about recovery and healing, but you have to overcome a few hurdles to get to that stage in life. this fic will touch upon and have mentions of the following: alcohol dependency, homophobia (internalised and not). there is also a lot of canon-typical warnings that will apply, surrounding sonia kaspbrak and the like, so please do heed that! i will add any additional warnings as we go along, and try to ensure i label any possible triggers at the beginning of each chapter.
> 
> i am aiming to stick to a weekly posting schedule, and have a good amount of this written already :)
> 
> with that out of the way, i hope you enjoy this first fore into something that will be inexplicably soft, in the end :')

Trees.

For miles, all Richie can see - all he  _ has _ seen - are trees. Sprawling dark green into inky black along the horizon, each one blurring into the others beside it until even the keenest of eyes would have difficulty discerning one tree from the next; branches twisting and interlocked as though one. He squints as though he can manage it anyway, focusing on the barely present glow of the setting sun in the distance, already casting shadows over the peaks and troughs of the land below.

And see, Richie’s got nothing against trees. They’re important, or whatever. He remembers the cycle they learned about back in school when he was too busy fucking around to really pay attention; the way trees take carbon dioxide out of the air and give back oxygen in place of it, making the air people like him breathe healthier whether it’s what they deserve or not (and probably it’s not, because aren’t they all just fucking up the earth now anyway?  _ Thanks trees for all your hard work, but watch out for the horror of deforestation coming to a tree near you!! _ ). They make something good out of something bad. There’s not much on this earth that can claim to be able to do that so, fuck yeah, trees are great.

There’s just a fucking lot of them here, that’s all.

His eyes burn after a long day of travelling to a destination that isn’t of his own choosing, and he sighs, sliding his glasses easily down the clammy slope of his nose and into his lap. He brings his palms up to his face to rub against his eyelids in a move that’s too rough to be at all comfortable, but the pressure of the touch still manages to help. 

It’s too quiet, even in the back of the car - not his car technically, because his car is a hell of a lot nicer (it's a 2017 Porsche Panamera GTS and he fucking misses it already), but his car for  _ here _ , and he’s in the back because apparently he can’t be trusted to get to Derry, Maine alone, so Steve got him a fucking glorified babysitter.  _ Just for now _ , he soothes himself, back teeth grinding uncomfortably against one another. He thinks of his father, of dentures, of scolding, of terrifying images of shaven down teeth and immediately stills the movement of his jaw.

Once they get to whatever hellhole Steve has rented out for him, he’s on his own. The thought is both satisfying and terrifying. He tilts his neck back against the hard line of the headrest behind him, eyes closing briefly as he seeks to chase a bitter commentary from his head.

Steve isn’t _wrong_ , is the thing. Left to his own devices, Richie would have bought himself a one way ticket to Mexico. _Sayonara, suckers._ _Adios_. _Send my regards to hell_.

The car rumbles beneath him, engine groaning somewhere from the front. It’s been a long drive. Three thousand or so miles over four days, a cross-country trek from sunny Los Angeles to here, the West Coast to the East Coast. It could have been fun;  _ should _ have been fun, maybe. Richie’s never been one to turn down a road trip. Eighteen years old with nothing but the open road in front of him and his fiery best friend - the only girl he’s ever loved -, a playlist full of angry pop punk singers peppered with hits from the eighties that both of them were quick to pretend they didn’t love as much as they did; stopping at gas stations to fuel up with artificial tasting energy drinks that kept them awake days on end, bouncing off the walls of the grungey motels they forked out for every few days, only relenting when their bodies protested too much against sleeping in the car for another night.

Back then, they were escaping from a small town, watching it disappear in the rear view mirror and whooping in celebration, the sounds of their enthusiastic laughter reverberating around the car. It feels bizarre to be moving towards that which he had once fled from.

This road trip has been more of a forced exhibition and a feat of endurance for him. The hired help is a man of little words and he hasn’t let Richie out of his sight for longer than it takes for him to take a shit, so. It’s been decidedly  _ not _ fun. Richie had made him stop at too many gas stations along the way for the sheer hell of it, stocking up on sugared candy and being watched too closely whenever he even brushed passed the coolers. 

Flying would have been better. Quicker. More comfortable. More efficient. But airports pose a heavier risk of surprise paparazzi attacks than road trips, and nobody needs photographs of his ashen face splashed across the gossip pages right now, least of all him. The rumour mill already turns too easily, bubbling over with unattractive tales about his life.

For the first time since they’ve crossed the state border, Richie turns his head towards the landscape outside the window. With no sun to guide his way it takes a moment for his eyes to adjust to the dimness, to see more than just barely distinguishable shapes. The trees are falling away now as they roll smoothly into the destination town, though it is cushioned on each side with forestry as far as the eye can see. 

He’d never even heard of Derry, Maine before this. Looking at it from this vantage point, he can see why.

Despite the fact that it’s not that late, it looks like the town is already beginning to settle for the night ahead. Only a few people roam the streets, looking like human shaped ants from this distance as they move between crooked buildings that look as though they have seen far better days and not a lick of fresh paint for many years. A crumbling theatre, a pharmacy, a garage. Richie thinks of Los Angeles with its twenty four hour buzz and constant signs of life and wonders how long it will take before he’s begging to return home. Three days, he gives himself. At a push. He’s not above begging, not when a situation calls for it, not when it could be the only way of getting what he wants - what he needs.

Something tells him Steve won’t succumb to it this time around.

“Nice place,” he comments off-handedly. “Is it just me, or does this look like the backdrop to every horror movie made in the 80s?”

His glorified babysitter grunts his acknowledgement from the front seat. Over the past four days, Richie has come to recognise this as the closest thing to a laugh that he can pull from the man, so he counts it as a success because it’s all he has. He is not himself unless someone is laughing at him.  _ With him _ . At him. Laughter is the sustenance of his life, and it hasn’t ever really mattered to him where it comes from.

The car lets out a pathetic spluttering sound. Richie grinds his teeth again. This is his car now, for as long as he’s here, and it would be just his luck for it to break down. It couldn’t break down before they’d left California, or when they were only halfway across the country, but of course it would now that they’ve arrived here; leaving him officially stranded and alone, and not just metaphorically. 

With bated breath, he waits for a few moments to pass. It doesn’t break down. It’s just old and tired. He knows the feeling.

He drags his eyes away from the cold glass of the window, though for the last few moments they have been resting there all but unseeing anyway. More buildings; more trees; more evidence that this is not his home. Not the home he has been curating for himself bottom up since he was eighteen, not the home that he is modestly proud of, not the home that he wishes he was at right now.

Derry, Maine looks like the sort of place where people come to die. There’s maybe an element of truth in that which sends an electrifying shiver roaming along Richie’s spine, a fist closing tightly around his erratically beating heart for a moment, releasing on a breath that is far too audible in the quiet of the car. Acid burns its way up his gullet and he swallows it back down laboriously, clenches his eyes shut against the sudden onslaught of visceral emotion. Whiskey sour breath; an icy certainty that you will never be warm again; the fear of forgetting at odds with the pain of remembering.

When his eyes flicker open again he catches the unhidden gaze of his babysitter in the rear view mirror, focused on him openly and curiously, maybe with a hint of underlying concern there, too. Worried about cashing his cheque, no doubt. Richie flashes him a smile that’s too tight instead of flipping the bird, which is what he  _ wants _ to do.

Babysitter has at least fifty pounds of hard muscle on him, though. Contrary to popular belief, Richie doesn’t actually have a fucking death wish.

“Take a picture,” he says, like it’s funny, like it’s a joke, like everything else in his life. “It’ll last longer.”

Glorified babysitter does not react but to let his eyes slide away from Richie easy as melted butter, like they were never resting there in the first place.

They continue on until they’ve driven straight through the town - in one end, out the other. He could probably walk the span of the place in no time at all, he thinks. He will, one day, just because. Turning his head sharply to glance out of the back window, he watches with a furrowed brow as the town fades into the distance.

“Uh, the town’s back there?” He says, jerking his thumb backwards. “Are you actually bringing me out here to kill me, or something? People will miss me.” He’s joking. Mostly. He’s not sure if that’s true right now, actually.

There’s a few people who would celebrate more than strictly necessary at a funeral. He pictures them dancing on his grave and thinks he couldn’t blame them.

Babysitter - and Richie really should have documented his name somewhere, would have if he wasn’t so offended by his very presence in the first place - doesn’t blink. “You’re not staying in the town.”

Richie thinks of Steve, thinks of him saying  _ this isn’t going to be easy, Rich. Don’t think of this as the easy way out _ . He thinks maybe he should have taken the rehab option after all, but that feels a little too much like giving in for his liking.

He doesn’t have time to really get antsy about the whole situation, because it’s barely a few moments drive down the uneven, cracked road before they’re coming to a stop. He unfurls himself from the constrictive bounds of the back seat, feet planted on solid ground for the first time in hours. Stretching, he lets the knots in his back tug and pull, feeling the crunch of bones along his spine as his elbows pull behind his back, before he reaches up towards the sky with his arms elongated, on the tips of his toes. It feels good to be free of the too-hot metal dustbin on wheels that he’s so quickly come to despise.

Because  _ really _ , Richie isn’t a snob, and he doesn’t know jackshit about cars, but he thinks this must be Steve’s idea of a joke. The thing looks older than he is. It’s not like Steve can’t afford to book better with Richie’s money, but maybe Steve hates him more than he’s given credit for.

Peeling his shirt gingerly away from his torso where hours old sweat has been forming beneath the soft fabric, he checks the tyres on his side of the car. There were too many pot holes and nicks in the road on the journey through Derry, but he doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. The action is more for show than anything, giving him something to do before he descends into any sort of panic about this situation he finds himself in. He kicks out at one of the tyres, satisfied by the sturdiness and the lack of bounce as his shoe hits the ridged black edge of it.

The air is strangely thick, despite the fact that it’s not that hot. He knows  _ heat _ . This is nothing compared to a day in the peak of summer in California, sweat beads rising on skin almost as soon as they’ve been wiped away, freshly pressed lemonade the only relief, together with chlorinated water, pools found in every other backyard. 

Richie looks around, half squinting - trees, again. It’s officially conifer country, and he huffs a laugh beneath his breath. Pine needles crunch satisfyingly loudly beneath his feet as he takes a step forward.

They’ve pulled up into an enclave on the side of the empty road, shrouded by wilderness. A breeze whistles through the gaps between the branches of the trees, splintered by the faint twittering of birds. It sounds almost like they’re having a conversation - a trill from one area instantaneously met with the answering hoot from another. At least something’s happy to be here.

“I’m living in a forest?” He asks mildly. “You know, when Steve said it would be good for me to take some time to myself and connect with my roots again, this wasn’t quite what I was picturing. Gives a whole new meaning to ‘being one with nature’, right?”

He doesn’t get a response. 

It doesn’t really help to alleviate the murdery vibe going on here.

Instead, his babysitter slash chauffeur grabs a few of Richie’s bags from the trunk of the car and starts walking towards the trees. Only then does Richie notice the path leading from the side of the road, winding into the forestry; too narrow for a car to traverse, which makes sense of the haphazard parking. The path is unpaved and dusty, as though created only from the passing of people treading over the land over so many years, but he wastes no time in grabbing a bag of his own and following. It’s preferable to do that, rather than to be left on the side of the road in an unfamiliar place, not least one that looks like the scene of every rural small town murder he can think of.

That’s the last thing he needs, to be murdered out here in the middle of nowhere. At least it would make Steve bad for a few days if the babysitter he’d hired to look after Richie ended up killing him instead.

The path is long and winding, broadening the further up they travel until it’s vast open space and not nearly so claustrophobic. Here, the trees are far enough away on each side that they can be admired, without feeling so overbearing. It feels as detached from the rest of the world as Richie had imagined it would be, but for some reason he finds that thought more stabilising than not, now. The eeriness of the rest of that which he has seen under cover of a clouded, deepening sky is erased, and he is left only with a sudden exhaustion that aches the very marrow of his bones.

It’s been a long few days. It will be a longer few months still.

Against the scenery of the heavens slowly turning sable, and the densely populated woodland, a building emerges, imposing and sudden as the path teeters off into an extensive area that circles the building and keeps the forestry outside of its boundaries.

“Shit.” Richie whistles lowly. “And here I was expecting a fuckin’ cabin.”

It’s not a mansion, not by any stretch of the imagination, and it is nothing compared to those homes which so frequently dot the ridges of the Hollywood Hills. It’s a lot larger than he had thought it would be, though, housing surely more rooms than he strictly needs. It still has an anticipated rustic air about it given the rurality of this place; it’s clearly an old building, older than the majority that he would find back home. Maybe older even than some of the decrepit structures in the town that they had passed along the way, but it’s been tended to far better than any of those have.

If he could pick the whole house up and drop it somewhere in LA, it would cost a pretty penny to buy. All the way out here, Richie figures he could probably buy three houses just like this, and that’s a testament to the housing market rather than his own wealth. LA is a cesspool of greed, the landlords piranhas in search of their next meal.

It’s picturesque, especially in this setting - more welcoming in daylight, probably. Large, vertical windows with lattice style framing, and a heavy wooden door. His eyes flicker up towards the windows on the second floor hurriedly, a shiver running down his spine. Nothing stares back at him from beyond the lifeless glass.

There is something quietly foreboding about the place. But maybe he can blame the ridiculousness of that thought on the foreign surroundings and the sleep deprivation of the past few days.

“The man who owns the place said to let him know when we arrive, and he’ll come up from the town with the keys. I’ll give him a call and let Steve know we’re here, too.”

Richie is barely listening as his babysitter veers off towards the far side of the house, presumably to make those calls. Instead, he is already venturing in the direction of the house, taking the dilapidated wooden steps leading up to the verandah two at a time, wincing as they creak dangerously beneath the weight of his exuberant movements. He’ll put his foot through one of those before his time here is up, he thinks, and then immediately grimaces at himself for thinking it in the first place. If you think something, you can’t be mad when it actually happens; it’s almost as bad as willing it into existence, Bev might say. She taught him that.

But Bev isn’t here. Nobody is. Nobody to tell him that he’s doing the wrong thing, or the right thing (an occasion that occurs less often in any event).

He steps more carefully along the verandah, pressing his face up close to the first window that he comes to, peering in through the darkness inside in the hopes of seeing something that will give him a clue as to what the place actually looks like. It’s too dark; he can make out shapes, just about, hinting at various items of furniture; perhaps a sofa pushed to the side of the room, a tall cabinet towards the far end, though he’s merely spitballing here. 

Even from the outside it looks unlived in, yet it is spotlessly clean. He knows without seeing that the windows would sparkle if the sun was up to glint against them, and the thin layer of dust upon the window sill that is so often found on old, vacant homes like this is nowhere to be seen. The verandah is neatly swept of any leaves and pine needles and debris, the lightbulb hanging down from the top over the front door looks new, the post box is polished and smells like it, too. Though this place is empty, it does not appear to be uncared for in the slightest. He wonders why someone would own it and choose not to live there, in a home grander than anything else he could imagine inhabits the town of Derry. Someone could be comfortable here. 

He quickly decides it isn’t his business to care anyway.

_ One man’s trash is another man’s treasure _ . It’s fortunate for him that this place is for rent. He spied the Derry Town House on the way, just a glimpse of it caught with the ever-changing scenery outside of a moving vehicle, but what he had gleaned was nothing good. He doubts he’ll find any rats running around this place, but he can’t say the same for the sorry old Town House. 

This is his new home for a few months. How miserable. His molars clash against one another viciously once more, sending a jarring pain along the socket of his jaw.

Footsteps sound behind him and he spins, anticipating the sight of his companion. Instead, he is met with the unexpected. He hadn’t heard the thunder of the engine of the car that must have brought the man here, though the distance between the house and the road seems to make sense of that easily enough. Regardless, the man is here stood behind him. Looking at him expectantly. Soft hair that has the unruly appearance of having hands run through it, and circular eyes that are perpetually imploring, even as they gaze upon Richie in this moment. 

He thinks, foolishly, that eyes like that could convince a person of anything; that’s what he needs, when it comes to begging Steve for his freedom. Eyes like that could bring the entire world to its knees. Eyes like that would take no prisoners. He fumbles his footing with the thought.

“Mr Kaspbrak?” Babysitter is already moving away from the foliage, hand outstretched towards the newcomer. “Thanks for meeting us here.”

The man - Mr Kaspbrak, apparently - removes one of his hands from the pocket of his light blue jeans, stained with splodges of dark grease along the knees, across the hem, in order to meet the handshake offered to him. Even from the veranda, Richie can see that his hands are clean, his nails neatly clipped, at odds with the state of his dress, though they are not uncalloused and with rougher skin around the edges. He wears a faded gray tee shirt in a relaxed style, and worn trainers that look surprisingly expensive. Richie wonders what the former is hiding, and then stops that line of thought abruptly, because he can _ not _ be checking out his new landlord.

“No problem. Are you both staying here?” He has his brow furrowed, indicating between the two of them.

_ Is that an issue _ ? Richie wants to ask, even though the answer to this man’s question is an emphatic ‘no’ which babysitter is only too happy to provide. He’s been living in warm, accepting LA for too long; coming back here reminds him of childhood, of growing up in a backwards town that he couldn’t wait to steal himself away from. He’s automatically on the defensive, but all signs point to that being the best thing for someone like him somewhere like this. He digs his own hands into his pockets, only belatedly realising the action mirrors the stature of the man who is going to be his landlord for the foreseeable future.

“No, no,” Babysitter is saying. “I’ll be on my way shortly. It’s just Mr Tozier here who’ll be staying.”

“Richie.” 

Two sets of eyes flicker back to him, a question heavy in those which are deep and brown. 

“Call me Richie.”

The man nods, rocking back on his heels. “I’m Eddie, then.”

“So, tell me Eds,” Richie moves forward, more heavily than he would like. He notices the spark of irritation that glints in Eddie’s eyes as soon as he drops the nickname: a bad habit of his he has no intention of quitting any time soon, giving people - strangers, even - nicknames. “Why’d you leave a big ole house like this empty? Is it the ghosts?”

He expects the silence that follows; the audibly disappointed sigh that comes from the babysitter. He doesn’t expect Eddie to tilt his head to the side imperceptibly and say: “Something like that, yeah.”

Richie blinks back at him.

“Well.” Babysitter says. “I’ll be going now.”

Horribly, Richie feels his stomach drop at the idea. He swallows, turning the full force of his attention to the babysitter for perhaps the first time in days, really. He thinks he should have made more of an effort, in between the bitching and the shivering of those days on the road. “You’re not gonna stay for tonight? You can’t drive back this late, man.”

“Got a motel booked a couple of towns over.”

They’re not friends. Richie doesn’t even remember his name for fucks sake, but the realisation that he is about to be left here - well and truly alone - hits him like a brick to the face. He bites the tender tissue at the inside corner of his lip, and nods, before doing some jerky imitation of a salute. “Well, it’s been a pleasure riding with you, Captain. May your voyage home be safe.”

Eddie raises a thick eyebrow at that, turning his head to the side as though hiding the beginnings of a smile. It gives Richie a perfect view of his chiselled profile; the sharp slant of his jawline, the cheekbones that push delicately at taut skin, the muscle that jumps in the side of his neck.

There’s a smattering of goodbyes that are neither important nor emotional, and then it’s just the two of them. Eddie raises his hand to indicate the key dangling from between slender fingers, looking towards the front door. Richie moves aside to let him pass, but he’s caught awkwardly hovering on the steps still, and it makes the space seem even narrower, to have an arm brush so close to his torso as Eddie steps past him.

A nervous energy runs in his blood, tiredness chased away by something a little more dangerous. He rocks up onto the tips of his toes as he impatiently waits for Eddie to unlock the door, looking around as though he might see something more than trees, trees and more trees, despite knowing already that there isn’t much here beyond that. He’s barely in the middle of the forest, not so far from the main road, yet somehow it feels like this is it’s own little bubble. He can’t hear the sound of traffic, and he can’t decide whether that’s unnerving or not. 

He’s never been far from the traffic in LA. He used to find it soothing, the sounds of people going about their business at all hours. He used to wonder where they were going, imagine they were moving to greener pastures and brighter places, destinations that he could only dream of. Out here, he can’t see himself doing much of that. Even when the traffic passes, it looks like they’re staying in the same place.

“You’re free to do whatever you want with the time you spend here just, don’t make a mess of the place.” Eddie shoots a look back at him, pushing the door open swiftly. He steps back to let Richie cross the threshold first. “If anything breaks, just call me. I’ll leave my contact numbers. I think your - agent? He has them, if you lose them or something. I don’t know. I thought he was coming with you, but obviously not.”

“Thank God. He’s a real hardass. He would’ve made the drive down seem like a funeral parade.” Though, it sort of felt like that anyway. Richie grins, already looking at the enormous entrance hall, at the stairs which have seen better days but are spiralling towards the upper floor. He curves himself around the doorway to the left, eyes falling upon the lounge area that he thought he saw through the window earlier. 

He notices, then, that Eddie hasn’t followed him into the house. His lips are a grim, thin line across his face, and Richie can’t help but arch a brow, a laugh in his voice.

“What? You’re not going to tell me it’s actually haunted, right? Why the fuck are you just standing out there, man?”

“It’s not haunted.” Eddie starts with a snap, looking like he thinks better of it halfway through. “That’s not - that’s not a real thing. Ghosts don’t exist.”

“Then… why?”

“I have somewhere to be.” Eddie says edgily, in lieu of providing a real answer to the question. He practically thrusts the key towards Richie, the thin, spindly metal slipping out from his fingers before he has a chance to truly get purchase on it. “Here,” Eddie pulls a slip of paper from his pocket. “My details are on there, if you need anything.”

Richie slides his fingers over the creased white of the note, looking down at it. There are two numbers; a personal and a work line, he imagines, hastily scrawled in thick black ink. The paper itself feels good quality, slightly raised indentations on the card. He catalogues it as another thing to know about the man with stained jeans and work weathered hands. 

“You’re not going to ask me why I’m here?” He says, finally.

Eddie frowns, hands already curling back into his pockets almost defensively. “None of my business. And, frankly, I don’t care. Just don’t trash the place.”

It’s almost a relief to hear that:  _ I don’t care _ . So directly and honestly spoken to him. There’s a difference between wanting people to care and wanting them to  _ care _ . He doesn’t want the former. Richie looks over Eddie’s shoulder, towards the now jet black night sky speckled with stars - stars that he can actually see, way out here so many miles from Los Angeles, little pinpricks of light that remind him that he is not alone in this universe - and he nods, a small smile on his face.

“Fair enough. I don’t make any promises, though, about the not trashing the place thing. I’ll pay for any damages.”

He can’t imagine there’ll be many ragers to have here in this backwater part of the world, but he’s gotten pretty adept at having them all by himself.

“Whatever,” Eddie huffs a breath, scuffing his trainer along the floor, before nodding shortly. “See you around.” It’s polite, like perhaps he’s just remembered that this is a professional relationship, that he is providing Richie with a service. An entire property that Richie didn’t ask for and doesn’t really want.

Belatedly, Richie yells at his retreating back, “Ghosts do too exist, by the way! You’re asking to be ghost stalked saying they don’t!”

Eddie doesn’t respond; maybe doesn’t hear him, or maybe doesn’t care enough to acknowledge Richie and his stupid whims. In a flash he’s gone, and Richie is left with the bags that house the few belongings he was able to bring with him on his journey across the country, and an empty house.

Something pale and motionless catches him out of the corner of his eye, and he jumps backwards, knocking against the table pressed against one wall. He reaches for his beating heart with his hand. The culprit is a mirror, framed in ornate, peeling gold paint over bleached wood, reflecting his own stricken face back at him. He takes one look at the drawn features, the lavender veins creasing his lids, the purpling bruises beneath his eyes, the days old scruff peeking out across his cheeks and his chin, shadowed and unkempt, and he drags his gaze away.

“Pull yourself together, dickwad.” He mutters beneath his breath, dragging a hand roughly across his face as he takes a moment.

A moment is all he gives himself.

Avoiding the mirror this time, he turns back towards the open door and the stillness of the night, marred only by the whispering rustle of the trees, and he moves to bring his bags into the foyer.

\---

Richie spends three days confined to the house and the verandah. He isn’t used to the quiet, not in this way. Even when he was alone back home, there was never silence. It never felt so suffocating. Each time he reaches for his phone he stops himself. As much as he knows that Bev and Ben would be delighted to hear from him, he can’t bring himself to do it just yet. He will. He will contact them and he will not spend his months here without allowing himself that, but it’s a process.

Everything is a process. He sounds like fucking Steve. It’s embarrassing. He’ll be preaching about  _ mindfulness _ next, except he doesn’t know what the fuck that means and he’s pretty damn sure he doesn’t have it.

On the third day, he steps out onto the wood of the verandah with a steaming coffee - complete with copious amounts of sugar - held between two hands. He curves his fingers around the mug, letting the heat from the liquid warm his skin, and he settles on one of the wrought iron chairs around the table. It’s not particularly comfortable, the metal digging into the meat of his thighs through the denim he wears, and he grimaces, shifting around until he finds a better position for himself. 

The view would be better if there was a beach, he thinks, but this is Derry, Maine and there is no beach to be found. 

Just more fucking trees, as far as the eye can see. 

It’s early morning. The earliest he has seen in a long while, though the sun has still risen long ago. The air is crisp and fresh, the heady scent of pine mingling with the steam that rises from his coffee; a new scent that is not altogether unpleasant. He isn’t used to the stillness. If he strains his ears, he can hear the sounds of the forest; the call of birds and animals that he cannot and probably will not ever be able to identify, not tainted by the rush of traffic or people that would be found elsewhere.

His digits flex against the heated ceramic beneath them. He looks out towards the path that he knows leads up from the road, as though someone might be making their way up there. They won’t be, because he doesn’t know anyone here; because nobody knows  _ him _ here, but still he looks.

The temperature is somewhere in the range of neutral. Mediocre, like he imagines everything in the area will be. Average. Of little to no impact. He bites his lip and swallows down the dregs of his coffee, nose wrinkling at the strength that deepens the further down he goes.

Town. He’s going to have to go into the town, even though it fills him with something that feels like dread. Which is stupid, he knows. It’s just a town. Buildings and people and amenities. Nothing scary about that (except there is, very much so). 

He moves his feet up and down restlessly, enjoying the pitter patter of the noise against the hard ground, and he ignores the itching at his throat and in his hands. Instead, Richie gets up out of the chair, feeling the indents it has made along the back of his thighs, like a stamp pressed into his skin, and he moves back inside. 

The journey into the town will be short. He could walk it, probably, but he doubts his muscles would thank him for that first bit of exercise in months - he’ll take the car and scour the scene, try not to let his distaste for being here show too evidently across his features. 

Unfortunately, the cupboards in the kitchen are starkly bare, the fridge even more so. There is only so long that he can live on a diet of too strong coffee and stale cereal, and those days are numbered to the extent that he thinks this may be the last one. Should’ve been yesterday, but he’d found an energy bar buried deep in the recesses of one of his suitcases and scarfed that down over his desk, where he'd sat silently in front of a blank screen. He’d opened the document and typed not a single word, and decided that that had to be enough.

There’s nothing in him that particularly wants to venture into Derry, but the moment he thinks this his gut churns painfully with a hunger he’s been trying valiantly to push aside. Richie frowns down at his stomach as though it has betrayed him in some way, sighing as he grabs two keys from the kitchen counter - one for the house, one for the car. He should pick up a keyring, he thinks, and then wonders if Derry will  _ have _ keyrings. It’s not a tourist hot spot, as far as he’s aware.

It takes four minutes and forty three seconds precisely for him to drive into Derry. He times it, setting the clock on his phone when he pulls off and stopping it the moment he reaches the outskirts of the town. Convenient. There’s nothing else for miles around, and Steve couldn’t actually drop him in the middle of nowhere with no amenities to depend upon, though Richie has a sneaking suspicion that he would have liked to.  _ Let the caveman fend for himself _ , he snorts.

The car is a lot older than he is used to and doesn’t run quite so smoothly beneath his hands, the cab vibrating under him in a way that could be bad news. He hopes not. For all of Steve’s rambling about how this would be good for him, and he didn’t have a choice either way, he could have at least rented him a working, usable vehicle. If Richie has trouble with it, Steve won’t hear the end of it - that is, if and when Richie calls him back. It’s a petty game he’s playing at the moment; petulantly ignoring all of Steve’s calls and messages that come through to his cell, like he’s mad at him. He  _ is _ mad at him. He wishes he could use his fucking words instead of acting like a teenager about it, but Richie and words don’t tend to mix well.

The car is a 1990 Volkswagen Fox Coupe. It's Steve's way of telling Richie he's pissed. Well, Richie thinks, glaring down at the steering wheel. _Message received loud and clear, boss_.

He pulls up into what looks like the only real parking lot in town, right opposite some stately looking building that proclaims itself to be the Derry Public Library, signage showing white block lettering on a rich green background. The lot is vacant save for a few other vehicles dotted sparsely around the space, and he chooses a spot on the far end, putting distance between himself and others who will not notice his existence anyway.

Derry looks a little different in the light of day; the graveyard of the town at night suddenly looking like a different place.

The sun that burns high up in the sky does nothing to prevent the chill that coats the skin and raises bumps along the surface of it, but it casts the town itself in light and life. It’s strange, he thinks, that the sun is the same everywhere but its effects are not. Back in LA, he’d be sweltering beneath the strength of its rays now, cursing the heat beneath his breath whilst reveling in it in the same moment. Here, Richie wears a thin, navy jacket over a glaringly orange and yellow checkered shirt, and he pulls the material closer around himself instinctively as the breeze seems to pick up on a breath.

The town could be classed as quaint. It probably is, by someone, somewhere. The buildings that before appeared to Richie to be nothing but worn and decaying on the night drive down now have an allure to them that is unexpected. From the fading whitewashed paint cracking along one of the older structures, to the turrets and spires that he can see peeking up into the sky in places that seem far off but can’t possibly be. It looks like a sleepy town where nothing out of the ordinary happens, where the most exciting thing to happen to its inhabitants is the County fair, where people help the people. It looks like a place where people make their homes and lives, finding comfort in the simple, in the quiet that is so often lost in a city.

It looks like precisely what Steve wanted.

Richie inexplicably hates it.

His skin feels too tight, and there’s an itch beneath the surface that he cannot hope to scratch. It prickles at the nape of his neck and has him spinning too quickly on the spot when he vacates the car, stubbing the toe of his trainer along the gravel and stumbling. He catches himself just before he’s due to hit the ground, palm down on the ugly red hood of the car to stabilise him. He huffs out something between a laugh and growl, kicking his foot against the floor in retaliation before he rights himself.

One good thing about small towns; nobody is around right now to witness the humiliation of an almost fall.

He realises quickly that he has no idea where he’s going, standing in the middle of the parking lot with a confounded expression on his face, looping in a circle in the same spot as he tries to work out which direction is the one he ought to be heading in. All he wants is to find the closest thing to a grocery store this town has, get his supplies, and leave. He taps his fingers on his thighs before making his mind up, walking in the opposite way of the library.

There are all sorts of niche businesses and stores along the way, none of them appearing to be at all busy, but it doesn’t take him long to find a grocery store masquerading as a hole in the wall. The sun is gaining power now already within the span of a few moments, and he swipes at the heated skin of his neck as he pushes the heavy door of the store open, surprisingly grateful for the sudden relief of the shade that stepping across the threshold brings.

To the left of the entrance there’s a till, manned by a short, petite woman who is already looking at Richie when he turns his head in her direction. That prickling sensation is back. He offers a smile that lends itself more to a grimace, ducking his head in an imitation of a nod, though the purpose of the action is more out of reflex; releasing the split lock of their eyes and hiding what he can of his features. It’s a habit. Not one he necessarily thinks he needs to wield here, but old habits always did die hard.

He collects a basket from the stand near the door swiftly, shoulders hunching upwards as he slinks down between the first two aisles. 

There’s music playing, faintly in the background. Too faint to make out the exact words, only a few coming to the forefront, but he can hear the rhythm and the melody beneath it well enough. His mother always did say he had an ear for music - it’s not a song he’s familiar with, not something that he recognises, and he thinks it sounds vaguely sad. Like the singer is trying to put on a jauntily upbeat face, but the music itself is far too telling for that to completely hide whatever it is he’s attempting to mask. 

Pretty, he thinks, taking in the easy twangs of the guitar, the soft lilt of the voice, the barely there beat. Pretty, but he doesn’t know much about that.

There’s a mindlessness to the way that he peruses the shelves. The first section is dedicated to the healthier stuff - the fruits and vegetables of the world. Or not of the world, exactly, it’s not the sort of store that one would find exotic delicacies in, but it has the bare essentials. He reaches for a pack of bright green apples and tosses them into the basket, followed quickly by some potatoes, carrots, an avocado. He hasn’t cooked for months but if he wants to survive the next few, he’s going to have to pick it back up somehow. Still, there’s no rhyme or reason to the choices he’s making today, no clear plan delineated in his mind's eye. He goes for the familiar and hopes he can make something out of it.

God. He doesn’t know if Derry, Maine is the answer to getting his life back on track like Steve seems to think it is, but he sure hopes  _ something _ works. Maybe that’s a part of the process; maybe that’s the first step. Or wait - is that denial? 

Richie thinks about it, for a second, pausing with his arm outstretched in mid air on its way back from the shelf, a sweet potato held too tightly in the curve of his hand. He thinks he’s done the denial part. He thinks he’s done a whole lot of the denial part, actually.

“Are you going to buy that?”

The voice is questioning, almost accusatory in its tone. More importantly, it’s familiar. Richie turns his head to come face to face with thick, slanted brows and a disapproving expression, lips almost pursed as though on the precipice of voicing another thought - one that quickly follows. It’s not quite a rant, but he doesn’t look like he can halt it either way.

“Because you’re touching it, man. You have to buy it now. You weren’t going to put it back, were you? That’s disgusting.”

“Hey, mister landlord,” Richie says unthinkingly. “Yeah, man, relax. I’m buying it.” He places the sweet potato exaggeratedly in his basket to evidence the point, letting it slip from his grasp.

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie’s frown deepens. He seems to catch himself, adding quickly, “The sweet potatoes are good. They’re sourced locally.”

Richie blinks. “Oh. Good to know? I mean... thanks?”

“Most of the vegetables are sourced locally, actually,” Eddie continues like he hasn’t heard him in any event. “There’s a farm just out from the town and they grow pretty much everything.”

“That’s cool.” Richie says. The point of this conversation is already slipping away from him, but he thinks back to small town politics and a life he once knew, and he at least knows how he’s supposed to respond. “Good to, uh, help the local economy.”

Eddie’s gaze is piercing when he looks back at him. “Yeah,” he says finally. 

There’s a smudge of black just under his left cheekbone, and Richie’s eyes are drawn there immediately. It looks like oil, the same tacky blackness that had stained Eddie’s jeans the last time he saw him. He isn’t wearing jeans today; replaced with trousers of a softer and more tailored appearance, that hug the muscles of solidly formed calves and thighs tellingly. A plaid shirt is tucked into the waistband, a match that shouldn’t work but somehow does when worn by this man, in this town. Richie fights to tear his gaze away, already on the edge of being caught staring for too long, tongue wetting his lower lip with a bite of urgency to it.

“This your first time coming into town?”

Richie nods. “Uh, yeah,” he scratches at the back of his head with one hand, letting out a too-awkward laugh. “Unless you count driving through it on that first night, but. I didn’t see much.”

“Not much to see,” Eddie replies. He wears a smile but Richie feels strangely like this is a test, and not one that he knows confidently how to pass. He keeps his mouth shut instead, forcing Eddie to pick up the slack and speak once more, which he does, albeit stiltedly. “You should check out Memorial Park. It’s nice, when the weather’s good like this.”

The whirring sound of the store’s rickety old air conditioning system firing up suddenly cracks like a whip through the air between them.

Richie doesn’t know what it says about him that a stranger can take one look and decide that he needs - what? Peace and quiet. Serenity found in the manmade nature of a place in the centre of a small town like this. Probably, it says a lot that he doesn’t want to think about. Isn’t ready to think about. Bags under his eyes and tired skin are only too obvious, but there may be more to it even than that. 

“Is that what I look like I need?” he muses aloud, unable to help himself.

It has the desired effect of pulling raised eyebrows of surprise out of the other man. “I have no idea what you need.” Eddie pauses, reaching between them to pick up a head of broccoli. His shirt stretches over the swell of his chest at the movement. Richie swallows. He’s too easily distracted. “Other than some protein to go with all those vegetables in your basket.”

“Touche.” It’s not particularly funny, but Richie looses a genuine bark of laughter anyway, surprising even himself when there isn’t a hint of bitterness to it. “Though I’d say I have plenty of meat in my life.” He leers with it, making the joke less subtle before he can second guess doing so and remember where he is. 

When he does, it’s a swipe of his tongue across his cracked lower lip and an unsteadily beating in his chest as he waits for a reaction.  _ Well fucking done Tozier,  _ he thinks _ , you’ve really gone and done it now _ .

Usually, he’s all for getting a reaction. It’s what he wants. He’s not as careful with it as he should be, but he’s not really had the need to be - not for a while. But this is small town America. He knows how things work here, how easy it can be to get off on the wrong footing, how little locals care about the consequences of their own actions. History repeats itself. He shudders at the thought, hoping that he can pass it off as a side-effect of the air conditioning.

Fortunately, Eddie either doesn’t get it, or he doesn’t care. There’s something - a hidden glint in doe eyes, a microscopic tug at the corner of his upper lip, the shift of his gaze from Richie to the shelf. Something that makes Richie lean towards the second option, rather than the first. But he doesn’t know anything, and he certainly doesn’t know Eddie. He’s just relieved that he’s not facing being chased from the store with a mob hot on his heels.

“If you say so,” Eddie replies finally, the quirk of his brow solidifying Richie’s earlier thoughts. “I gotta get back to work. See you around?”

The sentence lifts at the end like it’s being posed as a question, and Richie knows he should acknowledge that. He makes a jerky movement, an amalgamation between a nod and a shrug, and then follows it up with words, because using his words is important, apparently, “Well, I’m in purgatory for a few months at least, so sure.”

Then comes the remembrance of why he doesn’t use his words so much. He always says too much, forgets to keep the darkest, deepest things under lock and key - save for the most important of those secrets that’s been buried for long enough that sometimes he wonders if it's even still there at all. 

To his credit, Eddie doesn’t blink. He nods and side steps Richie, leaving him to the rest of his shop in peace.

It doesn’t take long. The itching is back, incessant and crawling. He digs his nails into the back of his hand in lengthy, drawn scratches as he passes the alcohol counter. Pausing for a moment, he can’t help it: he stops and looks at the reflection of his own face in the amber and clear liquids, distorted enough to make his features grotesquely large and out of place. Sweat begins to collect where his armpits meet his shirt when he picks up the first bottle. He stands there for what could be thirty seconds or five minutes or a day. Then, he puts the bottle back on the shelf.

He speed walks back to the car. He doesn’t go to Memorial Park.  _ Go straight home. Do not pass Go. Do not collect $200 _ .

A heavy regret follows him the whole ride back to the rented house, shows itself in impatiently drumming fingertips and the constant running of his tongue against his teeth. Bev would be proud of him, he thinks, and then wonders why that doesn’t feel like it’s enough to mellow the sudden desire he has to turn the car around and get the damn bottle. 

May as well fail at the first hurdle when it’s what everyone seems to expect of him.

He doesn’t. It’s an uncomfortably close call, though.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The garage in the centre of town has been passed by him on more than one occasion now. The first time when he had been driven past it through the town, barely able to make sense of anything in the poor light of the night; today alone, he is sure that he has been in the vicinity of the building more than once, not finding any need to stop upon it for longer than a second. 
> 
> Now, though, he has a reason. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warnings for this chapter include mentions of alcoholism/alcohol dependency, and some general richie introspection!
> 
> a reminder that this is very much slow burn, but there will be increasing amounts of richie and eddie interaction from here :')
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

It only takes a matter of days for Richie to slip into a new routine in this new place, so far detached from everything that he is familiar with. The word routine is a stretch for what it is he actually does, instead slowly learning to live a life that has some structure but no real content, but Richie can’t pretend that that’s anything new right now. He’s been living without meaning for long enough now, moving through the past few months like they’re nothing but filler chapters in the story of his own life.

Not the right way to live, Ben would say, but Richie has never been Ben. Could never hope to be as wonderful as Ben.

He doesn’t stick to a consistent waking hour for those first days, rousing whenever his body allows him to. Sometimes it’s when the sun is just beginning to rise over the horizon, melting subdued hues of pink into a warm, golden glow. Other times, it’s later in the afternoon, when everyone else has already gotten through the first half of their day, leaving him glumly self-flagellating for his own listlessness. It’s been months since he’s stuck to a real sleeping schedule - maybe even years, if he thinks upon it for too long - and making that change to get it back on track - waking and sleeping at normal hours - proves to be harder than it would seem on paper.

Laziness, maybe. Or maybe he just doesn’t have anything worth getting up for right now. He lets that thought run around his head for too long before it gets lost somewhere to be picked back up another day.

Five days into his first week he sets his alarm for seven am with an air of naive determination. He snoozes it the first couple of times, barely opening his bleary eyes until finally the incessant ringing of the phone wakes him in time with the sun that is managing to pierce through the blinds powerfully enough for him to actually feel it. The steady warmth of the rays washes over his face upturned in the direction of the window, and the arm that lies atop the sheets of the bed, the leg just barely peeking out from under the covers. It takes him some time to blink himself awake properly, lethargic with the early morning that he has not been accustomed to for so long; he savours the fact that he can lay there in the quiet for a little longer, no urgency to his day.

As it should be, the first port of call is the bathroom, though that hasn’t always been the case for Richie, basic hygiene falling to the wayside on the worst days, when the smallest of actions would feel like a hefty chore to undertake. 

Now, the steady beat of the water raining down in the shower is pleasant against exhausted muscles, and he chases the staleness of his breath away with spearmint toothpaste and an electric toothbrush his father would be proud of. Then he washes it all down with a few cups of creamed and sugared coffee before it even hits midday, something that his father would definitely not be as proud of. 

Any semblance of a routine pretty much comes to a stop from there, until later in the day when he forces himself back into bed. 

Richie has the basic things covered - he’s taking care of himself enough that he’s sleeping and he’s showering and he’s eating, though perhaps not as well as he once would have, back when he was used to cooking properly, taking pride in the dishes he crafted and comfort in the fact that he could share something with friends in the form of a meal. He hadn’t so much as touched a stove for two months at least before coming here, but now that’s another thing he can cross off his list. Starting slowly, he’s been cooking the basics and at least one square meal a day. Cuisine that he is used to, that makes him feel like home, like safety - he’s not ready for that yet. It’s something deserved and earned.

Cooking for himself has always felt like a waste, somehow. Less then than it does now, but always the knowledge of effort squandered upon his measly existence has been as immense as it is true.

(There’s a voice in his head when he thinks this and it isn’t his. It sounds suspiciously like the dry tone of Stan Uris and it tells him  _ don’t be an idiot, Richard. If you didn’t exist, who would be there to annoy me? _ but it sounds loving, as well as tired).

Even with the routine slowly being built, it gets lonely quickly in a place like this. 

As much as Richie is aware that he’s supposed to be focusing on his writing, too, the progress being made on that part is uncomfortably sluggish. He worries that he’s forgotten how to do this, with everything else. Humor has always come easily to him, something used to build a wall where the alternative is far worse, but the fear that maybe that’s all come to a grinding halt, that he doesn’t know how to be the Richie Tozier that people both want and expect him to be - it has left him unable to sleep on more than one occasion in the past few months, shifting in twisted and drenched sheets, a cold sweat littering the surface of his body.

The lack of focus now could be the result of numerous other things. The sudden upheaval of his life, the difficulties he has been facing, the fact that he has not touched alcohol in over a week now. He’s already over the worst of it - the exhaustion and the angrily hissed frustration and the feeling that he wanted to crawl out of his own skin because it was too tight, didn’t fit right, wasn’t his anymore.

Now there’s just the temptation to spend his life battling.

_ It’s not alcoholism _ , he reminds himself. The mantra he had sworn to Steve over and over again, refusing rehabilitation until this had become the only apparent option. It’s not. But there’s some kind of dependency there, he recognises distantly. The incessant itching goes a long way to prove that, and he bites his tongue on the number of things he wants to say instead of admitting it, knowing that none of that will prove to be of any use at all. Being here, it’s evident that he’s passed that stage now.

Derry, Maine isn’t a place of excitement or wonder. He spends his time watching reruns of shows on Netflix that can barely hold his attention, flicking through his social media accounts even though he’s on a strict posting ban, deliberating between reaching out to friends and ignoring them until all of this blows over. Neither of those options is appealing or  _ good _ , but one of them will be necessary, eventually. 

Sometimes, he sits on the verandah and looks out at the trees. On a few occasions, he’s ventured a little deeper into the midst of the lush foliage despite knowing that he is unlikely to find anything of interest there, but something always draws him back in any event. It feels like a place that he should not go, that maybe he won’t be welcome in just yet. He’s a city slicker and his survival instincts from childhood have matured into something different; not those oft required in the middle of nowhere surrounded by trees and little else.

It’s been just under a week, and the truth of his situation embeds itself into him, burrowing under his skin like some kind of tic that needs to be cut out before it causes any real damage to his system. He’s alone. The loneliness is nothing new, but the alienation is, and there is only so much time that he can spend with himself and his thoughts. He knows he can’t spend the entirety of his time here holed up in this home, staring at the same four walls, doing the same old things, making little to no progress with anything. Feeling sorry for himself, when all of this is his own damn fault anyway.

Already the days are protracted and tiresome, his mind working overtime to fill the gaps that his lack of action provides. His restlessness proves itself in the wringing his hands in his lap, the way he drums a beat along the hard surface of every countertop he comes across, clicking the joints until the satisfactory pop of air bubbles between them leave him content for at least a short while.

The laptop - new, high tech, too expensive, too complicated for his tastes - glares at him judgingly from pride of place on the dining room table, where it has been resting since he moved in, and where it will undoubtedly rest for many more weeks to come. It’s keys ache to be tapped, to be used, to be useful to him, but the numbing blankness of his mind that comes each and every time he sits in front of it has his breath catching in his throat around the lump that forms there, his eyes burning with this strange desire to cry for something that he doesn’t quite understand yet. The loss of his career, maybe? At this rate, it really will be, though he hopes for his sake that it’s not. He’s never much been good at anything else; making a fool out of himself on stage is all that he has, and if he doesn’t even have that anymore -

Preparing for the  _ bad _ has never been his strongest of suits. 

It’s Thursday, the sixth day of purgatory. Richie only knows this because he has his phone to tell him, the date and time staring back at him every time the screen lights up. He moves between the kitchen and the lounge interchangeably, unable to settle in one place for too long - shifting between the stock wooden chairs that frame the dining room table, and the faded velvet of the couch that’s dangerously comfortable (he’s almost fallen asleep there on three different occurrences now). His legs shift up and down wherever they land, the tremor causing vibrations to echo through the surfaces he comes to rest against, and he keeps flicking through his phone. Every few moments or so, he’ll tap his finger across the screen or the buttons on the side, just to wake it up. 

The background he’d set what feels like years ago now is always there to greet him; a photograph of the three of them, he and Bev and Ben. He’s in the middle of them, an arm thrown across the breadth of each of their shoulders, Bev curving into his left side with teeth glinting, and Ben on the right, looking at the two of them instead of at the camera. There’s a reflection in the window behind wherever it is they’re standing that looks like the sparkle of fairy lights, multi-coloured and bright. Christmas, he thinks eventually, though he can’t for the life of him recall which Christmas this was, or where it was even taken. The three of them are laughing and happy, even Richie, so maybe it was a while ago. He battles against this sudden desire to change the background into something more neutral - emotionless even, something stock-taken and made for the phone - knowing that it’s only the guilt of not contacting them yet that’s making him feel this way. 

He settles with a coffee in front of the tv, tuning into some local station where a newscaster reads out headlines that make very little sense to him. Something about Bangor. A mention of Derry which jolts him from his stupor just long enough for him to catch the mention of some unruly kids and some uncouth graffiti; a story that wouldn’t be anywhere near the afternoon news back in LA. The newscaster’s voice, though enthusiastic at times, is monotonous enough that he almost fades back into the black of sleep, right there on the couch.

An hour later, after doing an obscene amount of unnecessary laundry for the sheer hell of it, Richie finds himself back in the confines of the town centre. It’s not as quiet as the first time, when he’d picked up some groceries and essentials and hurried the fuck out of there. The time of day probably has a lot to do with that - it’s mid afternoon and the weather is holding up, a cool breeze rippling through the open window on the drivers side of the car and tugging at the curls of his hair, helping to keep the heat of the sun at bay for a little while longer.

Now that he’s here, he’s stuck with the knowledge that he isn’t sure what he should be  _ doing _ . 

It’s not like LA, where there’s some sort of adventure to be found at every corner, in a city that provides for every single need and desire that a person could possibly have. He could go further afield, he knows, but he should have left with the early morning if he wants to do that. All of his plans start somewhere in the middle, a thought that he’s lost the beginning for, splintered and disorganised and always winding up being unfinished as a result.

He stays in the car for longer than he needs to, hands curled tightly around the touch-softened plastic of the steering wheel even when he’s parked up and the engine has been swiftly turned off, the key still in the ignition like he might change his mind and start her back up at any moment. Blankly, Richie looks out of the front window at nothing, aimlessly watching as some of the few people roaming around head up one street, as another vacates the cream coloured building opposite, as some children who should probably be in school play too close to the sidewalk.

Small towns have always made him vaguely on edge. He’s sure he mentioned this to Steve. Many times, in fact. But Richie has too many quirks for people to bother keeping track of them all.

With a sigh, he finally leaves the car, stretching elongated legs out of the small cab and ducking down so as not to bang his head on the too low roof. It’s not the sort of car he would have chosen, given half the chance, and the size doesn’t even begin to cover the extent of the problems that he has with it. He slams the door shut a little harshly, wincing at the banging thud of metal against metal when it comes to a close, brushing his hand against the sun-bleached paint as though in some sort of a silent apology.

Wandering around takes some time out of his day, which is all that he wants right now. A way to make the days shorter and less overbearing. He considers it an exploration, moving along the streets and trying to appear as though he knows what he’s doing and where he’s going, although he’s not altogether satisfied with how much he manages to pull that off, really. Derry is too tiny a place to get lost in, but he manages to wear the expression of a traveler who has misplaced his path anyway, catching sight of his drawn eyebrows and barely open mouth in the window of one of the shops he passes. 

He snaps a photo of the abandoned theatre on his phone, because it actually looks kind of cool. It looks out of place amongst the quaintness of everything else here - darker somehow, with a curious, perhaps slightly sinister feel to it. It stops him from getting too close, even as he silently berates himself for being successfully creeped out by a building - made of bricks and mortar and nothing else -, following his own strange fear up with a not so silent laugh at himself. Looking down at the picture on the screen, it captures the essence of the aura of the building anyway, and he makes a note to send it to Bev and Ben at some point. Preferably after he’s actually spoken to them. It won’t go down well if he just sends a photo and nothing else, and Bev won’t hesitate to berate him for that.

The photo turns out a little too artsy for his own sake, but he knows he’ll use it anyway. He can already imagine the conversations that will stem from it; Ben will probably have a lot to say about the architecture and Bev will tell him to go inside and see if it’s as spooky as it looks on the outside, and they’ll laugh about it. He’ll feel like he’s back in LA with them, even if just for a short while.

Eventually, he remembers his chance encounter with Eddie, automatically heading to move back deeper into the town with that thought in mind.

Memorial Park, it turns out, is fundamentally just a green patch of land in the centre of the town. 

There are a few benches dotted around, but the place is decidedly empty when he arrives. There’s a bandshell theatre painted in offwhite and duck egg blue stood to the far side of the park. Richie looks at it for a while. He wonders idly what sort of performances a place like this would see, and then thinks he might not want to know at all. He thinks of his own home town and its overly religious undertones, of the whispers and the malice, of the subliminal messages in every school performance. For a theatre kid, there’s a lot he came to hate about all of that back then. Derry, Maine could be different. Or it could not be. Richie doesn’t really want the chance to find out either way.

Although there evidently is not much to see here, he takes a seat on one of the benches anyway, because Eddie specifically told him about this place and there was probably a reason for that. It could be a gag. Richie wouldn’t be mad. Practical jokes and pranks are fun, if you ask him, and he’s been engaging in them for as long as the next person, but he doesn’t get where this one is going, if it is one at all. He feels like Ashton Kutcher is going to jump out from behind the stage and declare him to be  _ Punk’d _ , and he sits there laughing at himself for too long.

In the end, he stays there for a good half an hour, and he decides it isn’t a joke at all. It’s bizarrely grounding. The quiet that he is used to from the house is still present, but it doesn’t feel stifling here, beneath the sun, breathing in air that is fresh and not stale from circulation and use. He’s still uncomfortable with the idea of being perceived to  _ need _ this by a stranger, but that’s probably not it at all.  _ Probably _ , this is one of the nicest, best parts of the town, and though he may have had his reservations upon his arrival, he can see how that would be true. 

Turns out he does kind of need it. He’s a little ashamed that people can figure out what he needs far easier than he himself can, but he’s in no position to bite the hand that feeds him.

Even when two other individuals stumble across the scene and disturb his pace, it doesn’t have much of an impact on how the stillness makes him feel. It’s a different kind of silence out here - because it isn’t really silence at all, actually. He can hear the noises of life in the town around him; cars and people, children laughing off to the side, the bark of a dog and the whistle of a person carrying on the wind.

He could write here. Maybe not quite yet. The thought of writing now still makes his palms clammy and his heart race, and he knows he isn’t  _ there _ yet. A part of him is scared about what kind of truths will be spilled once he starts. But when he is ready - he thinks coming here to write would be easier than writing in the rented home. He still has to get used to that building, knowing that it isn’t his, and that it’s been lived in by countless others, that it’s only a temporary place for him to rest his head. 

It’s too big, mostly. He doesn’t know what Steve was thinking. Richie’s home in LA is  _ big _ , sure, but there are also people there more often than not, weaving in and out and fading into the background, but still there.

Even here, he is overwhelmingly aware of how inconsequential his presence is. In LA, he had thought that people would care. As it turned out, he had been alone even with a hundred contacts stored in his phone directory. When the warning alarm sounded, nobody had come running to help poor Trashmouth Tozier. He snorts bitterly.

After another twenty minutes or so spent sitting, Richie leaves to wander some more, letting his feet take him in whichever direction they please. He stops by the store to pick up some twinkies and Nerds, craving sugar in place of a completely different craving, and considers going into the library for the fun of it before deciding against that. If he can’t write right now, he certainly doesn’t have the energy or the focus to read. He just wants something to  _ do _ , but the practicalities of finding something to do that isn’t what he’s  _ supposed _ to be doing in a town like this are difficult. The months that he had already known would be long suddenly look tougher still in the wake of this realisation. 

Disappearing behind clouds, the sun feels as though it is stuck there, like everything else in this town. It hangs suspended amongst the sudden greyness, causing a chill to the air that was not felt before. The cold works its way beneath the armour of thin cotton that Richie wears, snaking around wrists he tries to pull up inside his too-tight plaid sleeves, ghosting over the back of his neck like a breath.

He’s in the midst of considering calling it a day, stealing back to the safety of his car for the five minute trek back to the house, but something gives him pause for thought. A movement inexplicably grasps his attention, the flicker of it caught out of the corner of his eye. By the time Richie has turned his head in the direction of the distraction it has already slipped away from him, but his eyes find something else to rest upon instead. Something better, even if he can’t accurately judge that with the lack of certainty he has as to what the distraction was in the first place.

The garage in the centre of town has been passed by him on more than one occasion now. The first time when he had been driven past it through the town, barely able to make sense of anything in the poor light of the night; today alone, he is sure that he has been in the vicinity of the building more than once, not finding any need to stop upon it for longer than a second. 

Now, though, he has a reason. 

A sleek, black jeep-like car resides in the yard, conspicuous enough in a place like this that he’s sure he would have seen it earlier, had it been there at all. Richie doesn’t know much about cars, his interests always found more in comedy and drama, in comics when he was a teenager, dreaming of ways of improving his life, as though he would find the answers in the laminated pages of the latest superhero story. He knows enough about cars to know that this one is expensive, however, and not subtly so. It’s the sort of car a person would see ten of in a single day on the busy Los Angeles roads, but here it looks as out of place as he feels.

It’s not the car that draws him in. 

Stood next to the offending vehicle is Eddie himself, the hood of the car popped open. Richie watches from across the road as he bends over and into the front of the car, tinkering with some mechanisms that Richie couldn’t hope to understand. He wears a white vest complete with the trademark oil stains that Richie has now come to recognise Eddie by, and his biceps strain beneath the skin as he works, muscles flexing with the push and pull of the movements he’s making. When he rights himself, his hair is mussed and his face lightly flushed rosy with exertion. Richie’s mouth suddenly dries, swallowing around the sensation of sandpaper that has lodged itself in his throat, and he’s closing the distance between them by crossing the road without even thinking about what he’s doing; before he can talk himself out of it.

There’s only one familiar face in this town, and it’s this one. He’s content with focusing on that being the reasoning for his heading on over here at all. He doesn’t want to be the lost puppy dog that latches onto the first barely friendly face that he sees, but already his body appears to be making the decision for him, until it’s too late, until Eddie’s head is turning towards him, his eyes lighting with some kind of recognition as they land upon Richie’s tired features.

“Hi,” he greets, stepping out from the side of the car as Richie approaches. There isn’t a hint of surprise in his tone, but some of it lingers across his expression instead. “What are you doing here?”

“Checking out the town.” Richie replies instinctively, stopping just shy of a few feet from Eddie. “I went by Memorial Park.” 

He doesn’t know why he says it, per se. It’s silly to want any sort of recognition from a man he doesn’t know, and yet he feels himself obliged to tell Eddie that he did what he was told to do; what Eddie said he should do. He went to Memorial Park, even if it did take him a few days to get there in the end. He went because Eddie was the one who mentioned it, even though he is usually more eager to disobey than not.

“Oh yeah?” Eddie quirks a brow at him. “What did you think?”

He picks up an impeccably clean rag from somewhere in the car, painstakingly taking the time to clean each and every one of his slender digits without even looking down as he does so. Richie looks. He watches as Eddie rubs at the more stubborn spots of grease, finding it easier to focus here than to meet Eddie’s gaze. There is an urge deep within that desire to reach out and take the rag, clear away the dirt for him, but he shoves it down deeper still until it is more of a distant hum than a strong pull.

“It was nice. Quiet. Could hear a pin drop.” He says finally. “Not very exciting. Not until the lunchtime moms showed up, anyway.”

“You should see it in the summer, when the band plays,” Eddie’s lips quirk, humor reflecting in his eyes. “It’s much more exciting then.” There’s something teasing in it.

“Oh, I’m sure,” Richie slips his hands into his pockets, aiming for casual. “Nothing gets me going more than percussion and bass.”

“Doesn’t sound like you get out much.” 

Oh, he’s definitely teasing now. Richie delights in that a little, though there’s fear there, too. Uncertainty that cuts through the delight sharp as a knife edge.

“Can’t. Didn’t you hear? I’m living in exile.” Richie says. He’s comically sombre with the words, but they are more genuine than he makes them sound. If this really has his exile, nobody has to know that but him. “Besides - are you trying to say that you  _ do _ get out? I know where you live, man.” He jokes, allowing himself a grin. “I know that’s not true.”

Eddie laughs but doesn’t supply him with anything further. He hip checks the door of the car shut, moving back to press the hood of it down gently. His hand sweeps over the coldness of it in something akin to a caress; the warmth is there in his eyes as he looks upon the vehicle too, admiration evident. A good car, then. Even up close, Richie couldn’t identify it to save his life, but he can tell from the way that Eddie treats it alone that it’s worthy of great care. Eddie walks around the vehicle, eyes carefully checking the tyres and the paint, and then he looks at Richie expectantly.

Richie panics, upon the realisation that he has no real reason to be here, stood in front of him. Eddie probably thinks he wants something; that he has a problem with the house, maybe. Richie feels like a model idiot. “You, uh - you work here, then?”

“Yes,” Eddie replies slowly because it’s obvious enough, and Richie winces inwardly. 

Eddie leans back against the car, folding his arms across his chest. It draws Richie’s attention there, to the white fabric pulled tight against his chest, and he flicks his gaze back up as though burned. “Sort of. Sometimes.”

“Those are all different answers, right? Which is it?”

“Sometimes. I work around town doing odd jobs, too. But I spend a lot of my time here helping out, sure. Not many people around here know cars like I do.”

“Odd jobs. What is that - like, cleaning windows or something?”

“Whatever needs doing.” Eddie shrugs easily. He seems unperturbed by the sudden and frequent questioning Richie leves at him, even more so with his casually teasing tone. “We don’t have the luxury of twenty four hour services here. Plus, I’m cheaper than a plumber coming from Bangor. Those bastards will charge you triple just for having to make the journey down.”

“So you fix things? That’s what you do?” Richie prompts. He keeps the joke in his voice in the hopes of belying his very real interest.

He’s curious, though bits and pieces of small town life long repressed are already beginning to come back to him. It’s the sort of thing he remembers now - having people around town who nobody could say for sure was certified to deal with the electrics or the plumbing, but who would be hired to deal with them all the same. Back then, he had always assumed it was just another way of getting people to stay stuck, rooted in the community that never wanted them to find foundations elsewhere; why would you leave, when you had everything you needed right there? It had never worked on him.

You make do with what you have, in small towns. Part of him used to hate that. Why should he have to  _ make do  _ when the world had so much to offer beyond town lines? But the grass isn’t always greener. Richie kind of wishes someone had told him that; had warned him of the perils.

Eddie levels him with a careful gaze. It’s heavy; assessing, though not impolite.“You could say that. If something needs fixing, that is.”

If something about it feels loaded, Richie turns a blind eye.

What little Richie knows of his new landlord makes sense now, the puzzle pieces he has been collecting along the way finally falling into place. The constant black smudges that still somehow appear more artfully placed than not; the calloused rough of his hands that Richie has not yet had the pleasure of experiencing; the way the house Richie now lives in is so well kept even without anyone living there before him. The comfortable clothes that somehow accentuate everything about Eddie, looking more attractive on this man in this town than they would anywhere else in the world.

Maybe Richie is biased. He’s always had a thing for short, dark, handsome and  _ capable _ . Just his luck that the guy standing before him (his  _ landlord _ ) would be the human embodiment of such attributes.

He rolls back onto his heels, tipping his face heavenwards. The sky is deepening in colour already, the pleasant blues fading as all signs point to an incoming downpour. It’s what the earth needs, the air having been heavily close for days now, but Richie doesn’t much fancy getting caught in the midst of it.

When he looks down, Eddie is looking back. The curiosity that Richie feels is experienced by him, too, if his expression is anything to go by. Usually Richie would feel like an animal in captivity under such an inscrutable gaze, but he’s in no rush to shake it off this time.

He licks his lips. “Looks like rain. I’d better get back to the car.”

As though only then noticing, Eddie looks up at the sky too. “Looks like it.”

Still, Richie doesn’t move. Not until Eddie returns his gaze once more.

“Let me know if you need anything up at the house,” he says, a shy smile pushing at his lips. “It’s in mostly good shape, but, you can’t tell with these old properties.”

“No problems so far,” Richie smiles back. “You take good care of her. But I’ll let you know if the roof starts caving in or something. Unless I’m already, like, dead under the rubble. In which case I won’t feel bad about you having to find the body, because you should definitely not be renting properties that run the risk of the roof caving in, what the fuck.”

Eddie just snorts at him, though his eyes are disbelieving this time around. Yeah, Richie thinks. He can hardly believe himself half the time either.

There’s no reason for him to stick around now with the conversation at a natural close, but he takes comfort in the fact that it has happened at all. There is some contentment which comes from discovering more about the only person that he knows here, and he flippantly waves two fingers in Eddie’s direction in farewell as he turns back towards the parking lot. It’s not too far, but far enough that he can duck out of sight behind the side of a building before he finds himself letting his eyes wander back over his shoulder. Disappointment floods him when he realises he can’t see anything from here, but he quickly pushes it aside with some inward chastisement. 

The car is stifling when he slides back into the leather seat, the sun from earlier in the day having been relentless in beaming down upon the front window. He should have gotten a sun shade, he thinks as he starts the engine, immediately pressing down on the button to lower the window closest to him. There’s a lot of things he should’ve gotten or should’ve done though, and it’s too late for him to be mad that he hadn’t. 

He sighs, clicking his seat belt into place and gazing at himself in the rear view mirror for a bleak moment, before he pulls out of the lot, out of the town, back up the winding, weathered road that will take him back. Back to a temporary abode for a transient being.

—

By some grace of God, the rain holds off until Richie is home, the first speckles of water hitting the fence top along the verandah just as he closes the door behind him. It comes hard and fast, a downpour that out here in the forest is thunderous to his ears. He can hear the way the water hits the building from all sides in sheets and heavy droplets, pausing in the lounge to watch as the ground turns wet and muddy and the trees seem to undulate with the force of the weather, tremulous in the movements of the branches and the leaves.

He shivers despite himself, though the house is warm and inviting compared to the scenes of the outside world. Dragging himself away from the window, he tosses his keys carelessly on the table in the hall, moving towards the kitchen with the aim of cooking up a meal that will take the chill off from the inside, warming the swell of his stomach and the bone-cold he feels so often these days. 

Already, he knows the perfect thing for a night like this. The sound of the rain is almost deafening in the quiet of the home, and Richie drags the old radio from the corner of the kitchen, flicking it. There’s nothing but white noise for the first thirty seconds or so as he spins the dial through the stations, trying to tune into something - anything - that will provide him with some background noise and permeate the ever suppressing loneliness that follows him. It doesn’t take too long before some vaguely familiar tune begins playing through the speakers, a song that he couldn’t name but thinks he knows. He turns the volume up with a quick twist of his wrist, before moving to the cupboards.

They still aren’t as full as they should be, looking more like the food stocks of someone who anticipates only needing them for a short while, rather than for a few months. But he’s picked up some herbs and spices, at least, building himself an array of store cupboard essentials that every kitchen should have, if you ask him. Not that anybody ever does. 

People forget, he thinks, that he is a person sometimes capable of doing things that a person should do.

The act of cooking gives him something to do with his hands, with himself. He peels and dices a butternut squash into rough cubes, chopping onions and some coriander to go with it, fresh chilli, slicing a few cloves of garlic. The ginger joins them, finely grated and a little more than the recipe calls for, but he’s gotten good at tweaking the recipes he finds to his own liking. He knows flavours well enough that he can concoct a recipe from the top of his head, but with his lack of experience as of late, he knows it’s better to start off simple. The last thing he wants is a sudden Richie Tozier style bout of ill-timed confidence that leaves a meal over-spiced and not half as delicious as it ought to be.

The oil and the red thai curry paste that he had been pleasantly surprised to find shoved towards the back of a shelf in the grocery store are the first to be heated in the pan. He lets his face hover too close to the steam rising from it, just to inhale the already inviting scents that are beginning to intersperse into the air around him. There’s not too much preparation required; he adds the onion and some salt and pepper and lets it cook until the onion becomes translucent in appearance, adding the garlic and spices thereafter. Just two minutes later, and he grabs the bowl with the butternut squash, upending it into the pan with a hastily made vegetable stock.

Simmer for thirty minutes.

He takes his time cleaning up whilst the pot bubbles away contentedly on the stove, wiping down the counters with a cloth that comes away speckled with red and orange from the dust of the spices and the juice of the various vegetables. Usually, Richie would leave the cleaning up to last, but he wants to keep himself occupied whilst the food finishes cooking; isn’t sure he can bear to sit before the television and twiddle his thumbs for the next half hour or so.

Besides, it’s good for him to get into this habit. Often times, the dishes get left when the food is eaten, the act of consuming a meal exhausting enough in itself that the thought of chores afterwards is enough to put anyone to sleep. Maybe that’s just him. He is made of restless energy at his core, and yet he still manages to find it in him to be lazy with the things he should do, the things he has to do.

By the time he is done, he still has ten minutes before he can even think of taking the soup off the stove. He sits at the dining table, slumped against the high back of the wooden chair, and he tilts his head at the nape of his neck. He lets his eyes come to a close, focusing on the soft music still playing from the radio - it’s not to his usual taste, but he’s too tired to consider skimming through the channels for ages to come to rest upon something that he actually likes. 

In the distance, the rain is still coming down, faintly heard beneath the melodies floating around the room. It’ll be a washout, he thinks, unless it stops soon. He’s momentarily relieved that the path is too narrow to get the car up nearer the house, hit with the image of struggling to get it back down again, wheels caught in the river of mud and soil that is being dredged outside.

Truthfully, he doesn’t have much of an appetite by the time he’s able to start eating. He doesn’t let that stop him. For a moment, he contemplates eating the soup straight from the pan because nobody is around to tell him he can’t, but then dishes it up into a clean, white bowl anyway, because he thinks about his mother, and how she’d want him to use a bowl. He curses as he spills some down the side, curses even more when he catches it with his finger only to forget how hot it is. It’s vibrant orange and enticing, even if his stomach doesn’t so much as clench in response to being presented with home cooked food.

He eats back at the table with the radio still on, taking his time with each mouthful. It’s enjoyable even if his body doesn’t seem to realise that it wants it - that it needs it - and he takes pride in the fact that he made this. Something easy and something that doesn’t require much skill, maybe, but still something that he has made with his own hands. It’s been long enough that he thinks he’s entitled to feeling proud of himself for this, but then he thinks that it’s probably pretty pathetic for a forty year old man to feel proud of doing the bare minimum to take care of himself. 

Then he thinks of a night spent in the tub just a month ago, and he thinks  _ fuck it _ , he’s allowed to have this moment.

He surprises himself by emptying the bowl despite not having been certain that he would be able to. There’s still plenty of soup left over, so he separates it into containers, putting two in the fridge and another in the small freezer compartment, rather than letting it go to waste.

Facing the empty house now with nothing to do, he feels the vague panic beginning to creep back in.

Fingers dig into the pocket of his jeans, a tight fit against his straining thighs, but he slides his phone out after a few attempts, blaming the slipperiness of the metal for how long it takes him. The time reads back as seven thirty five, the clean white lines of the numbers pulling his attention away from the background that makes him smile.

He should call Bev. Maine is three hours ahead of Los Angeles. He runs the numbers in his head, twisting his lip into a tight line as he thinks it through. Four thirty five, then. Chances are she might still be working - though she works for herself, so he knows that isn’t exactly a problem, per se. He knows she’ll be delighted to take his call, even, even if he won’t get away without some scolding for this. For leaving without fully telling them why, nothing but a note and a sardonic comment that they could contact Steve if they wanted to know anything further. He’d been in a shitty mood at the time. Justified, maybe, but not when taken out on his closest friends.

He sighs, and then dials.

“Richie?” The voice on the other side is hurried, a little bit breathless.

Richie can’t help but smile at the familiarity of it. “Haystack. How’s sunny LA? Has it stopped turning without me there?”

The pause that follows has him fidgeting where he’s pressed up against the kitchen counter. He looks down at the floor, toying at the hem of his shirt with shaky digits.

“No, it’s still moving, Rich,” Ben says finally. He sounds like he’s smiling. “Nothing has come to a standstill, surprisingly. It’s crazy, huh?”

“No shit.” Richie murmurs, snorting. “And here I thought I was the life of the party.”

It’s a bad joke, all things considered, but Ben still laughs anyway, and Richie feels an overwhelming rush of warmth towards his friend. Not one of the oldest like Bev or Stan, but still one of the best.

“How’s, uh - Maine? Is it Maine?”

“Yeah. It’s Maine. It’s wet. Wetter than your mom’s vag-.”

Ben makes a sympathetic sound, hurriedly interjecting before Richie can finish his thought. “It’s too hot here, if that helps. I keep sweating through my shirts.”

“That does sound hot. Not in the way you think, though.” Richie leers suggestively as though he can be seen, relishing as it pulls more laughter from Ben. “How are you?” The ‘both’ is silent but present.

“I feel like I should be asking you that.” 

Richie can hear shuffling down the line, but Ben doesn’t sound distracted in the slightest. He sounds like all of his attention is on Richie. Usually, he’d appreciate that. Right now, it makes him distinctly uncomfortable. He presses further back against the counter top to feel the hard line of the edge of it digging into his lower back, grounding.

Mostly, he doesn’t know how to answer this question right now. He clicks his tongue.

“You know me. Rolling with the punches.”

“You don’t have to do that alone, though.”

“I wasn’t going to ask you two to come to Maine with me, Benny boy.”

Ben is earnest. Always so fucking earnest. “But we would have. You know that, don’t you?”

And yeah. Yeah, Richie does know that. It’s precisely why he didn’t say anything before he was shipped across the country, bad enough that his own life was going to be upended for a few months without dragging those he cares about the most into the mess of this situation too. Making decisions on behalf of other people has never been his  _ thing _ , but this one. This one was important.

“I do,” Richie sighs finally. He moves his phone from one ear to the other, tilting his head to catch it between his temple and shoulders. “But I didn’t need you to. So. Here we are.”

The silence is too long for him.

“It’s fine, though. I have a whole fuckin’ stately home to myself. It’s like the Playboy Mansion up here, Ben, seriously. Without the bunnies and the fake tits, don’t get too excited. And there’s nobody here to bother me. I can jack off in the lounge if I want. Dick out. Who’s going to tell me to stop?”

“Richie,” Ben sounds pained enough that Richie laughs. “I didn’t want that mental image.”

“Add it to your spank bank. For when Bevvie goes away on her fashion shows or whatever the fuck they are.”

“You should call her, you know? She wants to hear from you.”

Richie winces. His hand curls around the edge of the counter, skin blanching with the effort of the grip. “Yeah,” he says, in the end. “I know. Tell her I called, though? I’ll, uh. Maybe this weekend if she’s free, I’ll…”

“Okay,” Ben says it like it’s easy. Richie loves him for that. “No problem. I’ll tell her to wait to hear from you.”

“Yeah, that’s. Good. Fine.”

“If you need anything… you let us know, okay?”

It’s hard for Richie to put into words what he needs. Harder still when he knows they can’t give it to him.

They stay on the phone for longer, half an hour at the least, and he forgets to watch the minutes tick by as he does, filling the silence of the home with he and Ben’s voices until it feels like his friend is there with him. Physically, Richie is glad that he’s in LA, not witnessing just how low Richie has gotten. But mentally, it is good to hear from him. He shouldn’t have put it off this long. Shouldn’t have ever thought that they would not want to hear from him, that they would be upset with him. 

He ends the call with a promise to not only call Bev, but to make sure he keeps in touch with the both of them more often now. It’s been almost two weeks since they heard from him, since he left the note and left in the night for a road trip he had never wanted, and two weeks is the longest he has been without them since he met them. Codependency is a bitch, but he’s long since known that he has that kind of personality; relying on the affirmations of others to make him feel as though he can survive.

It’s still raining by the time they say their goodbyes and hang up the call, but it’s late enough now that he can justify slipping into bed for an early night. He passes the laptop where it always sits without sparing it a second glance, checking the locked door twice before he ventures upstairs. Funny. Back in LA, he never thought to check, despite the high levels of crime in the area and the validity of any fears people would have for being targeted. But the trees of Derry make him feel less safe than the buildings of home right now.

He sleeps almost as soon as his head hits the pillow, not battling against the sudden wave of tiredness he feels. He dreams about old friends and Los Angeles and huge stages. He dreams that he’s in the middle of a set and it might just be the best set he’s ever done, but when he looks out at the audience, he can’t see their faces. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your comments so far! i haven't gotten around to responding just yet, but i appreciate you all! all comments and feedback is encouraged and appreciated :)
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie looks just barely into the house past his left shoulder, giving an abrupt shake of his head in response. His shoulders shift from that relaxed stance to something sharper, like his entire body is on edge.
> 
> “Oh, right,” Richie remembers. “The ghosts.”
> 
> It earns him another smile, one that pushes farther at the corners of Eddie’s lips this time, and then he’s jumping down from the verandah, shooting a questioning look at Richie. “Are you coming?”
> 
>  _Yes_ , Richie thinks, _wherever_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey all!!
> 
> have some eddie/richie content with this chapter, and a lot of richie thoughts as usual :')
> 
> thank you all for your comments and support so far, i WILL be responding!! i was supposed to when i posted this chapter but now it's 12am and i'm..... incoherent!!

A week passes in the lazy blink of an eye without incident. 

The shift in the weather continues, the temperatures dropping, the sun becoming little more than a weak, watery beam in the sky; the sky itself usually a backdrop of pale cerulean blues that fight to keep away the darker clouds to no avail. 

Richie doesn’t mind so much. It’s what he was expecting, honestly, what he has prepared himself. He breaks out the autumnal clothes that he never really has much of a chance to wear in LA, counting his lucky stars for actually purchasing the winter coat that Bev was so adamant he would need one day. He doubts either of them had envisaged this being why, but he already knows that winter in Maine will be harsh. Once September is over, he’ll miss the heat he knows so well.

_ California sunshine. California dreamin’ _ . Oh, but he does miss it, because whatever people can say about LA - and they can say  _ plenty _ \- it has always been where Richie and Bev had sworn they would end up, and they had. Chasing that American dream down and actually getting it, at least for a little while. They were broke college kids just trying to get by for so long, but so determined to make a life for themselves that wouldn’t result in them having to go back home with their tails between their legs like beaten animals.

Bev is a  _ fashion designer _ doing all the things she told him she was going to damn well do. He’s a fucking celebrity comedian who has sold out shows across the country, but the smile that that thought brings is just as soon wiped away by the reminder that he’s far less than that right now. Oh, how the winds of fate change.

He sighs, turns away from the cold as though he can shut it out somehow.

A part of him looks forward to seeing shades of vibrant orange and yellow, to experiencing the crunch of crisp leaves underfoot, to warm drinks on a day best spent indoors, wind bitten hands curled around a steaming mug of something comforting, to the mix of sweet and spicy aromas best equated to the season. He hasn’t experienced a fall like that since he was seventeen, the last full year he spent in his childhood town. The fact that he will get that now fills him with a profuse and unexpected nostalgia; unexpected because he had never wanted to stay, because he had fought tooth and nail to get out, because he could count on one hand the things he misses about small towns, but maybe this is one of them.

The unthinkable happens leading into the third week. 

Richie has ventured into Derry with increasing frequency now, already knowing the winds and bends of the town and its streets. Faces become more familiar to him, especially those that he has more contact with - the owner of the grocery store, Ms Martin, who has deep lines extending across her wrinkled face and a smile that is nothing but maternal; the librarian, a man taller even than he is, who he hasn’t quite plucked up the courage to speak to yet, but who smiles at him each time their paths cross anyway; the kid who runs around in a bright red raincoat and matching wellington boots, splashing in all the puddles he comes across.

He doesn’t hate being known by these people, is the thing, probably because he knows they don’t know him in the way people back home know him. He hasn’t got a bright red target painted on his back when he’s loitering around the streets of Derry; unlike in LA, when there’s paparazzi around every corner, and they’re content to settle with the comedian whose career is on the way down the drain when they can’t get the celebrity they’re  _ actually _ waiting for. Richie isn’t much for boasting, not seriously, and he’s nothing more than B-list celebrity if that; but he still has to don the uniform baseball cap and sunglasses out in LA when he doesn’t want to be seen. The last few months, that’s been more often than not.

On instinct, he finds himself seeking Eddie out whenever he goes into the town centre, but he’s never successful. After managing to bump into him on two different occasions during those first few days, Richie had imagined that he would be easy to find, but that turns out to be far from the case. The mechanic’s garage has a steady influx of people coming and going whenever he walks by, and he’s never brave enough to hover; he sidles past with his eyes casting glances from his peripheral, never catching on the one face that he knows and is keen on seeking out. He knows he shouldn’t; knows he’s chasing after something that could be dangerous, but nobody has ever pegged him as having common sense, so. Trailing after a man he barely knows because he’s hot and has the grace to enter into conversation with him is exactly the sort of thing Richie is known for, actually.

The rest of the town is curiously bereft of Eddie’s presence too, but Richie knows he shouldn’t  _ know _ this, so he tries not to dwell on it for too long. He tries not to look too obviously like he’s looking for something or someone when he scans the town.

On a few nights now, he’s skimmed his fingers over the crumpled paper he keeps in his back pocket, detailing the man’s contact numbers. He’s hesitated over contacting him because he has no reason for doing so, other than the fact that he is still so bitterly lonely, and Eddie is the only person he knows in town. The only name he can put to a face. He stops himself, reminding himself that the man does not need a washed out comedian following him around because he’s  _ alone _ ; people have better things to do than to focus on Richie and his issues, especially people who don’t know him and owe him absolutely nothing.

Definitely doesn’t need Richie drooling over him, either, but Richie doesn’t think he can strictly be blamed for that. The man is  _ hot _ . Richie’s only human and very, very gay, and very, very lonely. It makes sense that he’s distracted by the first good face he comes across here.

So he slips the paper back into his pocket every time, and fills his isolated hours with Netflix. Praise be for the surprisingly strong internet connection that he can get out here. He had always imagined that a place like this would be too cut off from the world, despite not being all that far from actual civilisation - cities and towns that are more urbanised and built up, that aren’t quite so backwater as this. 

As the days pass, he is even more regularly reminded of how similar this is to where he grew up, and it makes his breath catch and his heart race every time. Nothing bad has happened to him here yet. That doesn’t mean that it won’t. He’d be naive to let his guard down so quickly.

On the Tuesday, he wakes up earlier than usual, setting his alarm and sticking to it. The city of Bangor is not too far, and whilst Richie has no idea if there’s actually anything there worth seeing at all, he figures it can’t be any worse than Derry, the extent of which he has traversed in its entirety by now. 

Save for the woods. There’s so much forest around these parts, he fears he’d walk in and get lost, and then wonders if that would maybe be for the best anyway. Disappearing sounds attractive, sometimes. Then he remembers how his whole career is built off of craving the attention of others and recognises how dumb it would be for him, of all people, to think he could disappear into nothingness and be  _ content _ with that.

He’d want to come back, is the thing. He’d always wanna come back in the end. Just another plan he doesn’t see through to completion.

Though he knows that Bangor won’t be a city like that which he used to, he makes plans to go anyway. It is better for him to fill his time than to waste away, and he can take some photographs for Ben and Bev along the way (the latter of which he has spoken to now, thankfully, managing to get away from the conversation with only a small amount of berating, for which he had been grateful). He’s not been in Derry for even three weeks at this stage, but already he’s itching with this need to get out. Go farther afield. See what else is out there, even if this is where he’ll return at the end of the day anyway. 

A part of him knows that he won’t find what he’s looking for in Derry or Bangor or even Los Angeles, but that won’t stop him from trying. He has endless days to try right now.

He fiddles with the keys for an inordinate amount of time, almost scratching along the plastic of the lock as he gets into the car. Setting his coffee travel cup down in the cup holder in the center console, he feeds the key into the ignition and turns and - nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. 

Frowning, he twists the key back towards him and then forward a few more times. The engine splutters pitifully, as though it is making its best attempts at starting up, but quietens down almost as soon as it begins, until there’s nothing. No sound coming from the car at all. 

He’d known that abysmal groaning of the engine from before couldn’t mean anything good. 

“Fuck,” he seethes, slamming his hand palm down against the steering wheel, before he drops his head against the top of it for good measure. “Fucking  _ fuck _ .” His fingers curl around the edges of the wheel tightly, and he keeps his head pressed down as he tries to quickly even out his breathing.

Already he can feel the tidal wave of frustration at the situation creating in his chest, and he refuses to let it take hold into something deeper and worse. Annoyance, anger, sadness… they have more in common than people give them credit for.

He’s not going to have a breakdown just because his  _ car _ has broken down. Then they’d both be fucked.

(Besides, he’s already done that, hasn’t he? It’s the whole damn reason he’s here in the first place. It hadn’t been fun; he wouldn’t recommend it a second time).

The car breaking down is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things considering where he is. He can walk into Derry. There’s not much else around here, but he can walk into the one place that is closest, that he has to call home now. The one place that he really needs to be able to access. He doesn’t need to depend upon the car to get by, and he feels - stupid, maybe. Privileged? That word that gets thrown around by his publicist, a perky, young blonde who always berates him for his earlier ‘comedy’ even though that was  _ fucking years ago Sandy, can you give it a rest _ ?

He’d been closeted and terrified and very, very misogynistic. He gets that, but it’s all in the past or whatever.

But the fact that he doesn’t strictly need the car isn’t the point right now. The freedom that comes with having a working car is not something he wants to give up. Though he knows he won’t just disappear off with it into the night, regardless of the fantasies he has had of doing exactly that, it’s nice to have the _option_. It’s nice to know that if he wanted to go, he could. Being here doesn’t give him much freedom at all, despite the fact that he’s all the way across the country from his problems, despite the fact that Steve isn’t actually here. He hasn’t made any of the choices that have directly landed him here, and he can feel his control slipping by the day. The car is important. He doesn’t know what it fucking means, but it just. It just is.

Maybe there’s fuck all in Bangor, Maine, and going there will be a complete and utter waste of his time, but now he won’t find out anyway because he can’t even get there.

He lets out a sound halfway between a whine and groan, and it gets caught in his throat to make it all the more pathetic. Eyes clenched shut, head aching softly where it is still pressed dejectedly against plastic not designed to be rested upon. It’s grounding. He resists the urge to bash his head up and down against it, pressing in a little harder instead. 

When he eventually manages to pull his head back up and let go of the steering wheel, his reflection looks entirely dejected. He isn’t surprised, considering that is precisely how he feels, but it’s still jarring to see it so clearly staring back at him, his eyes and mouth drooping downwards with the likeness of a painting that has been left too close to the fire, all of the colours and features melting into something unrecognisable. He’s not sure he’s ever looked so fucking full of sorrow in his life, but then the mask that he’s hand crafted for himself over the years based on countless realisations of what people want from him is usually in place. Here, there’s nobody yet that he needs to wear it for, especially not for himself. 

In another time, in another place - the gravity of the situation might have been different, dependent upon such things. But as it is, he’s here, and his life has been spiralling for quite some time, and there is only so much straw that the camel can take upon its back. He feels his resolve crumble together with the engine of the car, sinking back into the seat as he tries to think.

He could leave it. The car. He doesn’t have a hefty need for it, but even the mere thought of leaving it in this condition has his gut churning uncomfortably. Everyone needs a getaway car, even if they don’t have anywhere to  _ getaway  _ to yet. He needs the options, he reminds himself, and if he leaves it too late, there could be more damage to the car than he even realises. He hopes it’s nothing serious; wonders in the same breath if Steve would get another rental for him.

Fingers drumming against the arm rest, Richie remains there for only a few moments more. A few drivers pass him by on the road, blissfully unaware of the frustration ebbing from him. He feels sparks of irritation towards them, despite the fact that they have no reason to know that he is broken down; he hadn’t even been able to get the car moving at all, so it’s still neatly situated in the enclave it calls home, just down from the place that  _ he _ calls home. He counts himself lucky that he  _ hasn’t _ been able to crawl out into the road before it had chosen to give up on him.

A bout of hysterical laughter bubbles like hot lava in the volcano of his chest at that. The car is just the latest in a long list of renegades in his life. Inanimate objects are no exception to the rule, it would seem.

Eh, maybe he deserves it. He’s kinda losing track of the things he deserves and the things he doesn’t now.

The car shakes when he gets out, hard and fast with his movements, the door swinging to a sharp close that he doesn’t bother to make any attempts to soften. He shuffles back up the pine strewn path towards the house. More reruns of old comedy sitcoms that no longer draw laughter from him. More staring at his laptop like he will magically grow a will to write. More pacing up and down the hallway, wearing down the dated carpets that pave the way with his incessant steps.

It isn’t until he’s throwing himself down upon the couch that he remembers the note still kept in his back pocket, the action of sitting rousing the crunch of crumpled paper. He angles his hips up and off the couch rather than getting up fully, twisting his body and reaching back to dig his fingers clumsily into the pocket to retrieve the note, tearing one corner of it in the process. Swearing under his breath, Richie smooths out the wrinkles, relieved when he sees that the tear hasn’t made the writing thereon illegible. Trying to piece together someone else’s writing is difficult enough without having to come at it with the view of a jigsaw puzzle devised from his own heavy-handedness.

A valid reason to dial the contact numbers proffered to have has been presented, and yet still he deliberates. Absently, his fingers skim across the card in an unbroken movement. He catches the inside corner of his lip between his teeth, brow furrowed deep with troughs during the momentary pause. For some reason, the numbers feel almost dangerous to him. Perhaps because he has been considering dialling them for some time, without knowing what to say if he did. This time, he knows what he has to say; the script is already written for him, some brightness to come out of having a deadbeat for a car.

The options are limited. He thumbs the raised bumps of ink bled into card.

Eddie picks up on the third ring with a tentative, “Eddie Kaspbrak speaking.”

“Eddie! Hi, hey,” Richie stumbles through the greeting, jumping up from the couch as though experiencing the shock of an electric current. “Sorry, is this a bad time? I didn’t think - you’re probably working, I-”

“Richie?” Still tentative; uncertainty clear as he hazards a guess as to the person behind the intrusion of his Tuesday morning. It makes Richie smile despite himself.

“Yeah, sorry, I - should’ve opened with that.” He says around an awkward huff.

Eddie sounds relieved when he responds. “No, you’re good, bro. I wasn’t expecting you, that’s all. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. Yeah - well, uh, no. Actually.”

He’s never liked asking for help. At least, not when it matters. Sure, Richie’s always let people  _ do things _ for him, but it was always part of the bit.  _ Oh, Richie’s too lazy to wash his own clothes _ .  _ Richie’s being dramatic and demanding to be spoon fed _ . He’s played up to it for as long as he can remember, the most vivid of these earliest recollections springing from his years as a teenager doing the dumbest shit to hold the attention of people who didn’t really care in the end. It started before then, but he remembers being fourteen and desperate for approval, chomping at the bit to gain it. But asking for that which he actually needs - it’s a whole nother ball game, and he’s never been adept at sports; doesn’t have the hand-eye coordination for it.

Asking for help brings with it the admittance that something is wrong, when he’s been valiantly fighting his whole life to pretend that the opposite is true. But then, maybe it’s a moot point now anyway. He’s already been carted all the way across the country by his agent because he’s managed to fuck up so badly that there’s apparently no other way in sight, and he’s pretty sure everyone is well aware of just how  _ wrong _ his life is. They could turn a blind eye in the name of loyalty, but he doubts it. The comedy game is a ruthless one. A miniscule drop of blood turning clear water crimson and the sharks are already circling.

No one takes him for a lone wolf. He surrounds himself with others and thrives off their attentiveness, reaching out for it in whichever way he can. The life of the party, the man with the jokes, the class clown - even when they’re laughing at him, they’re laughing, huh? Few people recognise that he prefers to carry his burdens alone, no matter how difficult that proves to be, no matter how much it crushes the soul. He doesn’t want to owe people shit, and he certainly doesn’t want people to know the darkest, sorriest parts of his history. There are a lot of reasons behind his inability to ask for the support of even those closest to him when he’s so desperately in need of it.

But this is just a car. There’s no story here that he would have difficulty spilling.

“My car’s broken down?” He says, like a question. He brings his hand to his head, rubbing along the slight indentation of the skin that still marks it from the action of pressing into the steering wheel. “I mean, she won’t start at all, so I don’t think that’s even classed as a breakdown, but, uh - she’s given up the ghost. No fire in her belly.”

“Okay,” comes the easy response, quickly adopting a more businesslike approach. Richie misses the geniality of the earlier tone. “Are you at ho - are you up at the house?”

Richie doesn’t miss the slip up, his hand clenching around the phone in surprise, fingers cramping achingly against skin warmed metal and plastic. He ignores it for now, slotting it away in a drawer for another time. “Yeah, yeah. I went to start her up about twenty minutes ago, but didn’t get very far. Didn’t get anywhere, actually.”

Eddie hums. There’s a crackle down the line, the scratch of a pen against paper. “I can come take a look. I’ll be about half an hour. Is that okay?”

“No, of course, that’s - great. You aren’t busy?”

“You caught me at the right time. I’m free after I finish this job, I’m just fixing up this gate.”

The ridiculous image of Eddie stood against a gate with a hammer in hand flickers at the forefront of Richie’s mind, and he taps his forehead against his palm impatiently in the hopes that the physical rebuttal will shake the errant thought from his head. Another drawer opens for it instead.

“A gate.” He says slowly.

“Yes,” Eddie says, just as slowly. “A gate.”

Richie swallows. “Okay, yeah, no, of course. That makes… total sense. That’s fine.”

He hurries through his preemptive thanks and his goodbyes, and then tries to conjure up anything that he can remember about cars (which is very little), desiring not to seem a complete fool when Eddie comes and starts busying himself under the hood, or - or whatever it is that people do with cars. Shit. Richie knows nothing, is the problem. If he did, perhaps he wouldn’t have had to call in for back up at all, but even as a kid he was never quite able to get into all of that. Not for want of trying, mind you. It would’ve been easier if he had. In a small town like his it could have been a shared interest with some of the other boys in his class, but instead he found himself getting off on the wrong footing from the beginning, always inherently alien to the other boys even when he worked overtime to fit into the box that was supposed to house them all. It was a cramped fit, right up until the wood splintered and collapsed around him with no hope of an easy fix.

He came out of a box and into a closet and there’s gotta be some kind of joke in that, right? He’ll mull it over later.

Half an hour is no time at all to suddenly familiarize himself with the components of a car engine anyway. He vows to keep his mouth shut for once, let the professional do the work, bite back any crass jokes he could make about exhaust pipes and engines. It’ll be hard, he thinks, but he’ll manage it. He doesn’t know which side of Richie Tozier Eddie Kaspbrak can handle yet, and the thought of scaring him away this early into his stay here is a worrying one.

The knock on the door still manages to come quicker than expected, proving itself to be something of a shock to the system as a result. He pauses in front of the door, resisting the urge to shoot a frantic glance at the mirror on the wall opposite like a teenager readying for a date. Instead, he tugs at the collar of his shirt, pulls the hem of his ratty tee down, and then slides some of the clamminess from his hands onto his jeans for good measure. 

He feels absurd; five years old again and tottering around the playground with this keen urge to befriend as many other kids as he can find, but only managing to collect a gaggle of two plus him by the end of the day. Disheartened and disappointed, having started the day full of hubris and determination, so sure that he could make an impact, even at that age. Picturing himself king of the playground, but not even managing to rule over the curly haired boy with the birdlike features and the girl with fire to match her shock of hair (as if he ever could have ruled over Stan and Bev; the thought now makes him want to laugh, go back in time and tell his younger self not to bother trying, saving himself a lot of frowns and heartache in the future).

The scenario isn’t so different on the surface. He never thought he’d be considering how best to make friends in a backwater town at the ripe old age of forty, but it’s just another curveball thrown in his direction. Nothing he can’t handle. He’s trying to ensure his survival for the next few months, and total isolation does not factor into that. Not if he wants to keep his sanity intact along the way - whatever’s left of it, anyway.

When he opens the door, Eddie has his back to it, to him. He’s leaning over the railing along the verandah, forearms pressed against the wood and hands clasped over the edge of it, overlooking the expanse of trees to the left. He looks relaxed out here. Richie would think him lost in thought, were it not for the way he turns in an instant. He tilts his body half around when he seems to hear the sound of the door opening, twisting at the waist though not fully facing him. Eddie is quick to greet Richie with the smallest of smiles.

“Hi,” he says.

“Hello,” Richie says.

He looks at him and then makes an aborted gesture over his shoulder, into the dark hallway. “Do you want to come in for a… coffee… or something first?”

Eddie looks just barely into the house past his left shoulder, giving an abrupt shake of his head in response. His shoulders shift from that relaxed stance to something sharper, like his entire body is on edge.

“Oh, right,” Richie remembers. “The ghosts.”

It earns him another smile, one that pushes farther at the corners of Eddie’s lips this time, and then he’s jumping down from the verandah, shooting a questioning look at Richie. “Are you coming?”

_ Yes _ , Richie thinks,  _ wherever _ . 

He nods rather than voicing this inexplicable thought. He reaches back to tug his coat from the hook on the wall behind the door, frustration sudden and flowing when it catches on the first few attempts. Finally he manages to get it free, not bothering to properly put it on before he’s walking out of the front door, pulling the door closed behind him as he wrestles with one of the arms of the jacket. The air is brisk enough that you can’t miss the sting of it, but not so cold that he’s contemplating breaking the winter coat out a month early.

It’s a short walk down to the car. It feels longer with the awkwardness that settles heavy in the air between them at first, Richie running through the options of speech in his mind and trying to stop on something that is more entertaining than  _ ‘so… the weather’s been miserable, huh? _ ’. The weather isn’t even  _ bad _ today. It’s just cold. The rain is holding off, the clouds that have been swirling with dreary greyness less dark than white today, and the chill is manageable. The shifting slope of his shoulders move beneath the thin fabric of the jacket as he tugs at the zipper, pulling it up to his chin and fiddling with the metal tag. He tries to think of something to say, but Eddie beats him to the punch.

“Going somewhere nice?”

Richie blinks when his voice breaks the quiet, stumbling a little in his steps. “Huh?”

“The car... “ Eddie raises a brow. “Were you going anywhere nice? Before you realised she wasn’t running.”

“Oh.” Richie wrinkles his nose, then shrugs. “I don’t know. You tell me. I was going to go to Bangor?” It’s a strange sound on his tongue, uncomfortable. Like a foreign language. He thinks it might be, actually.

Eddie wrinkles his nose back. It’s not derisive, as such; more an expression of contemplation, as though he’s mulling over the words before responding. “Like Derry. Just bigger.”

“Ah.” Richie doesn’t know what else to say to that. Does he laugh, and risk causing offence? Or does he say  _ ‘oh, so, nice enough then _ ’. People in small towns are defensive about their small towns, this he knows. He wonders if he would have grown to become one of them had he never left his town in the first place.

In the end, he settles on neither reaction, leaving it where it is.

There’s a truck parked up behind his car when they get there. He deduces that it must belong to Eddie, sparing it a long look. It looks a little worn from use but it’s also clearly well cared for; like the house. Functional. The bed of the truck is filled to the brim with various tools and bits and pieces that Richie couldn’t name if he tried, and he’s suddenly distinctly aware of how much of a city slicker he must seem to Eddie. He probably thinks he couldn’t even change a tyre. Truth be told, Richie doesn’t think he’d be wrong about it, either. He’s never tried and, frankly, hopes that he never has to.

He passes the keys to Eddie, watching as he bends into the car and tries the ignition a few times, getting nothing in return. He bites his tongue on the part of him that wants to make a quip about it; wants to confirm that he’s already tried starting her up, numerous times actually. But Eddie doesn’t waste his time from there, immediately circling the car to get to the front, popping the hood and ducking beneath it to get a closer look. 

For a moment, Richie considers just staying put - off the side, with his hands in his pocket, where he can’t cause any damage. But he finds himself moving forward anyway, until he’s almost side by side with Eddie, just a step farther back from the car. He looks into the hood as though he can be of any assistance, but all he sees are mechanics and components that he can’t identify for shit. He hasn’t had to think about any of this since he passed his driving test at eighteen, and any information that he’d consumed to get him there has well and truly dissipated from his brain by now. He could hazard a guess as to where the oil gauge is, maybe. He shifts his bodyweight forward. On second thought...

“What’s the outcome, doc? Is she going to live?” He asks nervously, tilting forwards ever closer.

Eddie doesn’t speak for a moment. Richie watches his brow crease, watches as he gets his hands into the hood, lifting and checking varying pieces with no care for the dirt that comes away onto his hands. His fingers are deft and nimble, slipping in between the smallest of crevices that Richie had not even known were there. There’s a lot to this car stuff, he realises, and he could never hope to catch up to it. He thinks of all the services people (him) take for granted, and adds mechanics to the list.

“Fifty/fifty survival rate.” Eddie says finally. He pulls back up, straightening and looking at Richie dryly. “I’m kidding. It looks like it’s a dead battery, nothing more than that.

“Does that - do I need to get it replaced?” It sounds expensive. Not that that matters to Richie. He doesn’t imagine they would just have one lying around, though, and the thought of being without a car for longer than a week whilst they order one in or whatever has sweat prickling along the back of his neck in a panicked instant.

“No, I don’t think so.” Eddie shakes his head dismissively. “I’ve got jumper cables in the truck. We’ll try that first.”

The relief is flooding. It is also apparent, if the softly understanding smile Eddie throws him is anything to go by. He moves away from the car as though to head back to his truck. In the process he passes Richie by, clapping a friendly hand down on his shoulder. It’s nothing more than that, and he probably has grime on the shoulder of his shirt now, but Richie feels weak with it. The sudden realisation that he hasn’t been touched by anyone in weeks - not even in the most innocent and cordial of ways like this - explodes like a bomb in his head. He closes his eyes against the effulgent flash of lights, quickly finding them to be burned even into his lids.

He’d almost forgotten how nice it could be to have the company of someone who holds little to no expectations for him.

He’s rubbing the sweat from the back of his neck by the time Eddie returns, jump cables in hand and already hooked up to the truck. He doesn’t ask for help from Richie, for which he is grateful. Another thing he’s never had to do. 

Instead, Richie lets Eddie attach the clip to the battery of his car, a second clip to an unpainted, clean metal part of the vehicle beneath the open hood. He can’t tell if it has a use or not. He stands back, letting Eddie carry on with his work, brushing past him to start the engine of the truck to try and engage with the car. The truck’s engine is far more powerful, the rumble of it low and deep. If Richie focuses, he could swear the ground beneath them vibrates with it.

“We’ll just let it run for a few minutes and then try to start her up again.” Eddie explains, like he can tell that Richie is entirely out of his depth in this environment. Richie would be embarrassed, but Eddie isn’t mocking him. He recognises that the fact that this is surprising to him is probably a telling testament of the people he hangs out with back in LA. “Hopefully, this will work. If not… we’ll try again.”

“And then? If it doesn’t work?”

“If it doesn’t work  _ then _ … we’ll look at replacing it.” 

“God.” Richie raises his hand to bite at the skin around his thumb nail, but he catches Eddie’s eye as he does and decides against it instead. “She’s a rental. I think. Fuck knows where Steve got her, actually. Probably got it from some shifty dealer just to do me over.”

“Steve,” Eddie repeats it. He looks thoughtful. “That’s your agent, right?”

“Mhm, yep. Sorted all this -,” Richie gestures around them - towards the car, back towards the house, in the direction of the town itself. “- out. Can’t be bothered to get me a working fuckin’ car though, apparently. Fuck.” He sighs, looking miserably down at the ground, wondering if Eddie will judge him if he just collapses onto it right now.

“We can fix the car.” Eddie is matter of fact. It’s as effective as a soothing balm to Richie’s horrifically exposed nerves. “Even if it  _ does _ require a replacement battery.”

Richie waves him off. “ _ You _ can fix the car. I can stay the fuck away from it and let you do that.”

“Not a car guy?”

“Dude,” Richie stares at him, laughing disbelievingly. “I don’t even have jumper cables in the trunk. Does that seem like the type of thing a car guy would forget to you?”

“No. I was joking. You look less equipped to deal with cars than Ms Martin.”

Richie opens his mouth to complain, faux offence littered across his features, before he’s drawing himself back in with a snort. “I can’t even argue against that. Have you seen her biceps? Of course she can wrangle a car.”

“ _ Wrangle _ ?” Dark brows move upwards and then downwards as though they can’t work out where they want to be; a look of actual concern crossing Eddie’s face, mouth twisting. “Oh, so, now I know where you’re going wrong. You don’t  _ wrangle _ a car. You treat it with  _ love _ .”

“I’d love her a lot more if she didn’t break down on me.”

“Maybe she’s just had enough of your shit.”

“Wouldn’t be the first.” Richie grins all teeth as he jokes, even when it falls a little flatter than he would have liked. 

It’s only flat because he recognises his own truth in it, but Eddie doesn’t - doesn’t have to know any of that. Won’t know it from one flyaway comment masquerading as humour. Richie’s good at that, at least.

They’re stood right beside one another now, two parallels that should not ever meet in the middle, and there’s a moment of a shared smile, before Eddie is pushing forward and back towards the truck.

“That should be enough, I’m gonna turn the engine off.” He says, already stepping up into the vehicle, making little work of it despite how elevated the cab is. “Then I’ll sort the cables.”

He does as he says, removing them in what Richie thinks is the reverse order, but doesn’t know for certain. A tit bit of information priorly learnt elsewhere cropping to the front of his mind too late, of little use now that Eddie is here and evidently knows what he’s doing - he’s grateful to Eddie for doing this, knowing that he would not have managed it alone.

“Try the ignition.” Eddie dips his head at the car once he’s satisfied that everything is in order.

Richie fires off a quick salute in his direction, before doing as he’s told. Trepidation rests heavy in his gut and he throws a quick, silent prayer to whatever God might listen to a Jewish kid who hasn’t practiced for years, and turns the key. Instantaneously the car comes back to life beneath him, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realised he’d been holding. The severity of just how much he did not want to be left without this - his sole mode of transport - is all too clear. Now, he won’t have to find out what that would be like.

He’s grinning when he gets out, arms outstretched to his sides in jubilation as Eddie moves away from where he was putting the jumper cables back into the bed of the truck, meeting him halfway.

“You did it! Shit, thanks, man. I owe you.”

“Don’t mention it.” Eddie’s got a rag in his hands, similar to the one that he had at the garage a week earlier. Already wiping away the evidence of hard work that this job has left behind upon his skin. “You’re gonna want to drive her around for at least fifteen minutes, give or take… maybe you’ll get to Bangor after all.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Richie nods.

He already knows he won’t bother now, not today. He’ll drive around aimlessly until he’s sure that he’s safe to turn the engine off, though already he feels reluctant to contemplate that. The thought of being stuck back at square one is uninviting.

Eddie smiles, again. He throws the rag in the truck and pulls off his jacket to toss that in after, arms tanned and dusted with freckles, up and over the obvious curve of his muscles from hard labor. Richie swallows. “If she won’t start up again, let me know. Fingers crossed you’ll be good from here, but you never know.”

Richie nods, again. “Sure, yeah. I’ll do that. Maybe get some jumper cables too.”

A quiet falls upon them. They should both be moving back towards their respective vehicles, Richie thinks distantly, but neither of them make that first step for some time. No more than a moment in actuality, yet it trickles by slowly as sand through an egg timer. When he focuses upon it too closely in moments like this, time seems to stretch and expand until there’s no sense of reality anymore.

He starts, “I should -”

“What are you -” Eddie begins at the same time.

They both stop, sharing a furtive glance and an out of sorts laugh.

“Sorr, man. You go.” Richie says, waving his hand through the air. 

Eddie shifts until he’s leaning against his truck, arm speckled with fine, dark hairs resting lazily against the bend where the window meets the body. “Saturday. What are you doing saturday?”

The question catches Richie off guard. He blinks; isn’t sure that he doesn’t physically move his head back in shock. It must be an imperceptible move if so, given the lack of reaction that comes from Eddie, who is just watching him easily as he waits for an answer. Richie doesn’t know what this is.

“Spending some valuable alone time, probably.” It’s lascivious and he immediately hates himself for it, for the curl of his lips and the way his eye twitches to wink. Overkill.

For some reason, it tears a bark of laughter out of Eddie anyway. He looks like he hadn’t meant to react in such a way, a flush to his cheeks that speaks of embarrassment, but Richie can only hone in on the fact that he made Eddie laugh, even with a joke as cheap and obvious as that.

“You should come into town,” Eddie says once he’s recovered enough. He’s still looking at Richie and it’s bordering on the line of being too much. “We only have two bars, but we have fun.”

Richie swallows. “We?” He asks thoughtlessly.

“We.” There’s humor in those circular eyes, in the slight purse of Eddie’s lips. “My friends. We go there most Saturday’s. You should come, meet them. It’s usually a good night.”

There are two very distinct thoughts that Richie has then. The first is,  _ oh no, a bar _ , because that is precisely the sort of establishment that he is supposed to be staying far, far away from. But the second thought is much stronger. The second thought is not so much a workable sentence but a feeling. It feels like companionship. It craves for something warm, for conversation, for a night spent in the company of other people, even if he doesn’t know them. Not knowing has never been an issue for Richie, who contorts his body to fit in the spaces left between the bodies of others, intent on being accepted.

Spending some more time with Eddie is also, admittedly, a thrilling thought, though one that he metaphorically beats down before it can be given a chance to bloom and grow delicate buds that would be more torturous to cut in the long run.

“Sure,” he hears himself say. “Maybe I’ll check it out.”

“Good,” Eddie smiles back. “We usually start at the Silver Dollar, but, ah - shoot me a text, if you need to know anything. It’s not hard to find, though.”

Right. Because Richie does have his number and, apparently now, full permission to use it for reasons other than that which it was originally intended. 

“If anyone could get lost in Derry it’s probably me.” He quips, laughing harder when Eddie pulls a face as though to say  _ yeah, you look like the type _ .

He watches Eddie back off into his truck and lets him pull out before he even gets into his own car. Eddie holds his hand up against the window in a wave as he passes by, and Richie waves back, too excessive and too keen. Fuck, he thinks, and then decides not to care. No use crying over spilt milk, and Richie’s spilt enough of it in his lifetime to know that by now.

By the time he’s crawling into the driver's seat, he’s already half forgotten what the aim of this exercise is. He has both hands on the steering wheel and a permanent frown as he glances down at them, at the grip of it between his fingers. It takes him a few moments to pull himself together, before he peels off from the side of the road, going further up instead of back towards Derry. He has no destination in mind, just the simple idea of driving around until he’s confident that fifteen minutes have passed.

The journey is thick with more of the same that he is becoming used to now. Greenery on either side, the carved out road widening into something more familiar to him, actually tarmaced and used. Ten minutes out, and it’s already busier than Derry is. He passes a few more built up areas, enjoying this route that he hasn’t yet thought to take on any of his explorations, but his mind is caught on other matters, his eyes not taking in as much of the scenery as perhaps they ought to be.

Glaringly, he recognises that going to a bar could be problematic for him. Catastrophic, Steve would say. But Steve isn’t here, and Richie sure as fuck isn’t about to call him and ask him for permission. He’s lost enough pride lately without falling quite that low.

Self-control is not something Richie knows how to exercise at the best of times. Unless inherently dangerous to his success, or to this personality that he has cultivated under the spotlight, he is known to indulge in that which he wants to indulge in, to chase pleasure however he can, even when that pleasure is known to turn into the sort of pain that cannot be enjoyed. He pushes himself to the precipice and hopes that someone else is standing there at the top to pull him back when he inevitably topples over it. He feels a stab of guilt for that now; for depending upon the goodness and the love of his actual friends for so long. He’s put them through the ringer just as much as he’s put himself through it, and he doesn’t know the first thing about making amends for a mistake that big.

He could make up an excuse as to why he can’t go to the bar on Saturday. Probably it would be the sensible thing, and probably it would make other people proud of him. 

But the biggest part of him  _ wants _ to go. Even with the fear that embeds itself in the back of his mind, he cannot shake this need he has to crawl out of this bubble he has found himself in, to get some semblance of himself back. He doesn’t turn down friendship when it is offered to him, having jumped at the opportunity of it since he was a kid. Because the truth is, friendship has never been easy for him. The aerated vibrancy of who he is is often too much, and after so many years of playing up to it he doesn’t know how to tone it down for the life of him. Richie doesn’t have a lot of friends; he has a lot of acquaintances and people who put up with him. He could count the number of real, actual friends he has on one hand, and even then that includes Steve, which is fucking  _ sad _ . Nobody is actually friends with their agent for fucks sake.

He’s a little bit scared. Here, in Derry, he doesn’t want to find out what will happen if he lets himself fester in damning loneliness in the home that isn’t a home. He can’t reach out to Ben or Bev or Stan and know that they’re just a phone call away from being with him. A sickeningly strong pang of homesickness hits him, sudden and overwhelming.

He coaxes the steering wheel through his hands, loosening the grip that is too tight. His hands rest at two and ten, and he moves them down in a more centred position instead. The twists and bends of the road here are not so easy to navigate, so he keeps his eyes on the road ahead, chases away the thoughts from his mind for as long as he can manage to keep them at bay whilst he’s driving. 

The last thing he needs is to hit a bump in the road - literally - and to find himself with an overturned car, flung into a ditch where nobody is likely to ever find him. He can imagine the headlines now. Somehow, the angle would be spun to make it about the alcohol, to make it about the breakdown, to make it about the cruel nature of a life in Hollywood.

Of course, he can’t argue against any of that either. There’s a reason that each of those would come to the forefront of any crafty reporter’s mind when looking at a story to dredge up on Richie Tozier. But he hasn’t had a drop in weeks and he isn’t fucking in Hollywood right now, and he’s supposed to be proud of that or something. 

He drives for what feels like hours, but isn’t even half that. It’s over twenty minutes though. Well over, plenty of time on the road to give the engine time to run, which he assumes is the reason for this. The morning has transformed into the afternoon without him even realising it by the time he pulls back up on the side of the road, and he’s momentarily disheartened at the fact that this has been another wasted day for him. 

Then he thinks about tanned skin and freckles and grime and he thinks that maybe it wasn’t wasted at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights)!
> 
> all feedback, comments, kudos etc. is encouraged and appreciated, u guys motivate me !! thank u!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You made a dick joke the second time I met you.” Eddie replies pointedly. He’s got a brow arched and his lips twitching at the corners. 
> 
> Richie’s eyes light up triumphantly. “So you _did_ catch that.”
> 
> “Only an idiot wouldn’t have.”
> 
> “I don’t know. I thought it was kind of subtle. Unlike my dick.”
> 
> “Oh God,” Bill groans next to Richie, leaning forward to press his face into his shoulder. Richie jolts at the sudden unexpected touch, throat bobbing as he swallows but stays resolutely where he is. “You’re literally exactly the same person on stage as off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! sorry this is [checks notes] a week late...... i have brain worms for a while and couldn't even edit a chapter apparently but we're back!!
> 
> a lot of richie introspection and backstory again, but i promise we are moving into territory with plenty more dialogue and fun going's on :')
> 
> warnings for this chapter: mentions/thought around alcoholism, some anxiety... i don't think there's anything crazy in here, but let me know if i need to add anything!

The second week of purgatory continues, days melding into one, only discernible due to the very slight shifts in Richie’s pattern, and the rolling uncertainty of the weather. It gets milder once more rather than colder, and he partakes in his usual morning walks to the verandah and back without the aid of a third layer over his usual open-shirt-and-tee-combo. 

For want of anything better to do with his time, he spends the majority of it at the house. On a few days, Richie sits himself in front of the laptop and stares at the blank white page of an open document, willing himself to make a start on writing  _ something _ . There will be no getting his life and career back on track if he doesn’t have any real material to return home with, but the minutes trickle by slowly whenever he sits there. The stiff wooden chairs that bracket the dining room table are hard-backed and uncomfortable, his posture too sunken to fit properly therein after years of making himself appear physically smaller to the outside world. 

His shoulders ache and his lower back twinges and the discomfort is enough for him to put aside any hopes of writing each and every time. He knows that he is using these things as a distraction, but reasons that that only goes to show that he isn’t  _ ready _ to try just yet. 

It’s difficult for him to sit and write jokes when all he can think about is the last time he got up onto a stage in front of a crowd of thousands of people. All of them having paid to see him, having paid to laugh along with him - or more likely  _ at him _ , but that distinction has never been of much importance to Richie anyway. The lead up to that night, to that performance… all of it is still vague for him. When he thinks upon it for too long, the memories are blurred at the edge and out of focus, like he’s trying to look at something in the distance without having the much needed support of his glasses to help him along the way. 

He thinks of pain in his chest as sharp as a hundred shards of broken glass; of the buzz in his head more akin to an army of wasps than adrenaline; of the swooping sensation in his stomach that had started before he had gotten up onto that stage and then never left. 

The only way he can describe it is this - you’re on a rollercoaster. You’re on a rollercoaster that you never wanted to go on. You can’t remember paying admission, and you can’t remember getting into the cart; but there you are anyway, the bar and the straps buckling you down securely enough that you feel like you’re trapped, the wind whipping at your face painfully as you begin to travel up a steep slope, the vacancy of the other carts a stark red flag. The panic rises as the cart does. You don’t want to be there. You never wanted to be there. You know, deep in your soul, that something is very, very wrong. Maybe your seat buckle is going to snap. Maybe the controls manned by one person will stop working, a technical fault, human error. Maybe you’ll find yourself free falling from the cart at the very top of the most elevated part of the track, a split second of exhilaration as you fall down, down, down until you hit the ground and there’s nothing waiting there to catch you. Nothing to break your fall.

It felt like that. Only Richie has never described it in so many words to anyone else, because he doesn’t want to be prescribed a trip to the psych ward instead of rehab, and he doesn’t fancy getting himself one of those hippy dippy therapists who prowl around the celebrities of Los Angeles, scouting out their next prey. Patient. Same thing, as far as he can tell.

The blank document transports him right back to that moment, somehow. It sets his teeth on edge that perhaps he has lost his humour. He won’t know until he tries, but every effort feels like walking through treacle, legs painstakingly being pulled through the heavy stickiness of the substance that is trying its hardest to keep him on the other side of the pool. To get to the other, he needs to push and push and push, but his energy has all but dissipated by the time he’s found it within him to even lift one leg one step.

Steve was probably right about this break. Richie will give him that. 

Being alone with his thoughts here is, in some ways, easier than being alone with them back home. 

He stands in front of the house and looks across at the trees that fence him in from every direction and angle, and it’s a reminder that he is not the oldest nor wisest thing on this earth. It’s okay to make mistakes. It sounds like bullshit, and he knows he’s made too many of them, but he has to focus on the things that he knows. That none of the mistakes he has made will make Ben or Bev or Stan love him any less. A part of him wants to say that that’s all that matters - fuck the career, fuck the agent, fuck whatever and whoever else. Except he knows that it’s not all that matters, that he still has to survive and live, and he doesn’t know how he’s going to do that if he doesn’t sort his shit out.

Saturday morning brings with it a quiet breeze and a straining sun. It’s higher and brighter than it has been for days, as though it is trying its damndest to be a good omen for the day ahead. Richie acknowledges its efforts with a nod and a smile as he eats his breakfast out on the verandah.

The iron table is glass topped and wonky. Every time he presses the weight of one of his arms down onto it, it moves some way. He’d made a few attempts at righting it, when he’d first arrived. He’d pushed a thick bundle of card under various parts of the legs, where the table meets the wood of the balcony, tilting the table this way and that to figure out where the imbalance was coming from, but nothing had worked. There’s probably a way of fixing it, he figures, but he’s never been all that handy. It’s been months since he even changed a light bulb. 

Now, he just deals with the wonky table, leaning into the steady rocking of it without the annoyance that it had sprung within him in the beginning. Off kilter as it is, he knows how it feels.  _ Relating to a table. Seems healthy enough. _

The breakfast burrito he’s made for himself - complete with smoky bacon and creamy scrambled eggs - burns at his fingertips when he picks it up, resulting in a curse word falling from his lips, the food dropping back to the plate in an instant. He’s impatient, stomach ready for this sort of comfort food that he hasn’t made for himself in an age. It’s simple and easy but sometimes that’s all that anyone needs.

Whilst he waits for it to cool, he takes in the view once more. Nothing ever changes out here, and in that way, he thinks it’s better than home. In LA, he can look out of his window and see something new every day, a feat that was one exciting to him when he was eighteen and had never seen anything like a city like that, but the novelty of it has run out pretty quickly. He never thought he’d be someone who appreciated the stability of a place, but - he’s greeted by the same sight every morning, give or take a few variables that are impossible to keep constant (the weather, for one).

He’s used to the scent of pine and early morning dew that hits his nose, now. He appreciates it. The sweet petrichor of the gravel after it’s rained, mixing in with wet leaves and pine cones that layer the pathway down to the car. It feels miles away from civilization out here, sometimes, even though he’s well aware that Derry is a five minute drive away at most. Because he can’t see the road, can’t see beyond the trees, cannot see anything other than the house and the trail and the foliage… he can imagine that he really is in a cabin in the woods, the sort of thing he had imagined with grim uncertainty when Steve had advised that he would be sending him off on a  _ retreat _ .

A retreat in LA terms is something deeply expensive and experimental. Usually featuring a lot of mindfulness and meditation. Maybe a massage or two, with scented candles and incense and someone telling him that he’s tense and stressed, as though he doesn’t already know any of that. 

The latter, Richie can deal with. He tried meditation once and got kicked from the class within ten minutes, so that’s pretty much always been out of the question.

Whilst Richie is sure that renting this place out for a few months hasn’t come cheap, it’s worlds away from the kind of retreats that LA is renowned for. He feels barely like a celebrity, and he supposes that that’s the point. Out here, people don’t recognise him - or they do, and they’re too kind to say. Or they do, and they don’t care enough to say. Either way, Richie welcomes the shift in attitudes. He’d spent a good few months wandering around LA being stopped for photographs and autographs, always wondering whether those stopping him are doing it with malicious intent or not. Wondering whether he’d wake up the next day to find a photo of him with dark circles under his eyes and unbrushed hair splashed across social media, with some comment about him being ‘back on the drugs’ that he doesn’t take anyway. Not anymore.

LA at eighteen and LA at forty are completely different places. That also comes with the territory of managing to completely bomb your career when it’s been going strong for so many years.

The sudden rumbling growl deep in the pit of his stomach reminds him that he was in the middle of attempting to eat. This time when he reaches for the burrito, it’s warm to the touch but not enough so that he’s afraid he’s going to burn his tongue to go with the singed fingertips he now has. The first bite is always the best, and he moans around a mouthful with reckless abandon, with nobody here to complain about his manners.

Sauce drips over his fingers straight away, because he’s always a little over-excited with the sauce. He follows it with his tongue, wiping his hand against the leg of his shorts for when he doesn’t quite manage to lick up all the stickiness. 

With his free hand, Richie scrolls through Twitter for a few moments, moving onto Instagram (not that he posts much there at all), mostly to keep up to date with whatever it is that his friends are doing back home without him. 

There’s a new photo of Ben and Bev curled up on the sofa of their living room with their dog - a great dane called Penny who almost knocked Richie over with the force of her enthusiastic clambering the first time he met her - nestled between them. There’s really not any room for a dog of that size on that couch with two humans taking up the space too, but they somehow manage it, limbs all over one another. It’s adorable. He feels a sudden pang of homesickness that has nothing to do with actually missing Los Angeles at all, and everything to do with missing the constant of his friends around him.

He’ll call them later, he thinks. Whichever one of them will answer, though they’re both pretty good at that. He needs to text Stan, too. To catch up with him and Patty, ask how little Esther is doing. 

The past few months haven’t been easy for him, although a lot of that has been thanks to his own mistakes, but he’s acutely aware of how distant of a friend he has been to them all. Not much of a friend at all, some would say. He knows that they will forgive him, that they will still love him, and perhaps that is something that makes it all the more bitter a pill to swallow. That he could push those away who have always loved him the most, even when he was a greasy-haired teenager with too many jokes about pussy; an acne-scarred twenty year old who still couldn’t find the balance between being respectful and being himself; a forty year old who had drunk himself to sleep too many times to count.

He sighs, taking another bite of the burrito and tapping twice on the photo which he has been hovering over for some time now, allowing a smile when the big, red heart pops up on the screen to indicate that he has liked it. It’s a good photo. It makes him want to get in the car and drive until he’s back in California, sure, but it’s a good photo all the same, and he will fight that urge until he can’t anymore.

He uses one finger to jab at the screen and type out a comment, dumb and inconsequential “ _ look after my girl _ ”, which could be directed at Bev or Penny or both. He’ll let them all stew on that one, chuckling as he imagines his friends reading it. 

As much of a failure as he is, as much as he acts like he doesn’t care… Richie doesn’t like to fail. If he fails at this, in particular - well, he doesn’t know what that will mean for him. Nothing good, though, he’s sure of that.

Letting his phone die down with the screen returning to black, he doesn’t waste his time scrolling any longer. He still isn’t strictly allowed to post, and though there have been plenty of fans questioning where he is - as active of a personality as he is on Twitter - he knows that all of that will die down eventually. Steve will have some kind of a statement to release if it comes down to it, and Richie will be back to posting soon, anyway. A month off, that was what they had agreed. It’s not like he’s addicted to social media, though he does check his Google alerts more than he should, always faced with something disheartening when he does, but he’s a frequent user of some of these sites.

It’s extremely LA of him to say that he’s on a social media detox, but that is precisely what this is. Of course, it’s all part of the bigger picture - some plan that Steve has that involves him being here, and taking some time away from his phone, and Richie doesn’t know fuck all about detoxes or plans or any of this. But he’s willing to entertain it solely because he knows that he’ll lose Steve as an agent if he doesn’t, and after the occurrences of the last few months, it would be an awful long time before he even has a hope of finding someone to replace him.

Besides, he and Steve are friends. For the most part. It’s more than a professional relationship, Steve having been Richie’s agent ever since he really broke onto the scene in his mid twenties, and saying goodbye to that would be like saying goodbye to a friendship, too. Richie can’t afford to lose many more of those.

He finishes his breakfast down in one last bite and a gulp, wincing when he realises how much he has underestimated what was left of the burrito, pausing as he waits for the whole thing to go down.

The breeze has already started to die down a little, the trees stiller than they have been for days, and he contemplates his options for the day. He could venture into town and pick up a few groceries, though he had really been planning on doing that in the morning. Chances are that he will fill his day by staying here, instead - making some half-hearted attempt at writing that will be aborted early, finding himself instead on the couch whilst he skims through Netflix for half an hour to find something new before settling on something that he’s already watched instead.

He’s been going out of his mind with boredom since he arrived, but he’s trying to get used to this. 

As he moves back into the house with his used plate in hand, the reminder that it is Saturday is suddenly all the more forceful. Saturday. He is struck instantly with the conversation that he had had with Eddie when he had helped to restart his car, and he almost drops the plate, catching it just at the last moment before it tumbles from his fingers and shatters white ceramic across the carpet.

It’s almost humorous that he would forget about the conversation now, on the actual morning, when it had barely left his mind for the days following their interaction. 

Richie takes his time to wash the plate methodically in the sink, the water too hot when he dips his hands into the bubbles, but he withstands it anyway, thoughts already collecting on the night ahead instead. He’s still not settled on whether he should be going tonight - to the bar, whatever it was called. On the one hand, it would be good for him to meet some more people within the community, to get himself out of the house and to do something that might actually be considered  _ fun _ (although the amount of fun that a person can get up to in a town like Derry is still yet to be established).

On the other hand… he grasps tightly around the edge of the plate under the water. A bar. Alcohol. A lot of people who might actually find his face to be familiar. Rumours made in LA can travel to even the most unlikely of places, and he wouldn’t be surprised to find at least one person in this town who is aware of who he is - who might even be a fan of Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier, though he doesn’t want to get ahead of himself. He’s just as likely to be punched in the face as asked for an autograph these days.

He’ll have to text Eddie if he’s going, too. Not like he hasn’t been thinking about it for days on end anyway. Richie has typed out so many text messages, deleting them every single time, wondering if he will ever get the guts to hit send. He’s considered it more often than not - just shooting a ‘hi’ or opening with a joke, easily positioning himself as someone who texts Eddie and who Eddie can text back. It shouldn’t be difficult and it shouldn’t leave him feeling so nervous, even just the possibility of them engaging in some sort of informal conversation getting his palms clammy.

There’s always something about him that feels like an imposition, even when he has been explicitly welcomed in by someone. 

He spends too long scrubbing at the same old plate, lost in his thoughts; ten minutes passing by whilst he stands at the sink. By the time he puts the plate on the drying rack and unplugs the drains, his fingers are wrinkled and pruny, the way they get whenever he takes a bath or spends too long in the shower. He dries his hands as best he can with a dish towel, turning away from the kitchen and into the lounge area.

There are only four rooms in the house which he uses: being these two, the bedroom he’s claimed as his own temporarily, and the bathroom upstairs. There are other rooms - plenty of them, all hidden away behind closed doors that he hasn’t bothered exploring yet. Maybe it’s strange that he has been here for two weeks now without bothering to find out what else lies within these walls, but it feels like an intrusion upon something. 

Eddie had called it home - or he had almost called it home, cutting himself off before he could get the word out. Whilst Richie had obviously known that this place had to be the home of somebody before it was turned into some glorified holiday let in a place that doesn’t get a lot of tourism, he hadn’t put two and two together, not once considering that it had been Eddie’s home once. Something about that puts him off scouring the house and looking beyond those rooms that he has to use to get by. 

He thinks it might be the vaguely haunted expression that has dawned upon Eddie’s face both times that Richie has seen him in the vicinity of the house now.

Not that the place has ghosts - none that have made themselves known to him, at least. The plumbing creaks and the stairs make noises sometimes, the sounds of an old house settling all around him, but despite the ongoing joke about the house being riddled with spectres walking the halls because they have not yet found their way into the light, Richie has not encountered anything abnormal in the house. Apart from that spider a few nights ago; outrageously large and hairy, unlike any spider he had ever come across before. He might have screamed. Nobody can hear him here anyway.

In another context, that would be a terrifying thought.

He laughs at himself as he deposits himself upon the sofa, stretching ungainly over the coffee table in order to pull the remote control close enough to the edge of it that he can grab it. The television flickers on with a minimal amount of static, and he flickers through the local stations for a while. He’s beginning to learn the names of the local areas, so he can just about keep up with the news now. The stories are mild compared to those that he is familiar hearing on a daily basis back in LA, but that’s more comforting than it is anything else.

The other night, he had had to turn the channel over quickly to the next when the newscaster had begun describing some hate crime. It hadn’t taken place in Derry, thank God, but it had been close enough to have his skin crawling with a thousand bugs beneath the surface, dark and difficult. He had slept with the image of those two young faces burned into his mind; even now crystal clear whenever he has the misfortune of thinking back.

He turns the news off, immediately reverting to the familiar red ‘N’ that he is so used to clicking upon now. He doesn’t bother wasting time trying to find something when all he really wants is the background sound anyway, pressing play on some original comedy show that will get a few laughs out of him whenever he’s tuned in enough to actually pay attention to it. He chances a glance over at the laptop still on the table, biting at his thumb before he turns back to the television. There’s time for that.

Humour comes easily to him, usually. He’s been writing his own material for years now, getting more comfortable in his own skin than he ever was when he was younger, and yet with everything careening downhill in his life as of late… writing is proving to be harder than cracking his usual jokes on the spot, the kind that lend themselves to quick and easy conversation but would not suffice on a stage.

Maybe one of the issues is that he has nothing to draw on right now. Nothing in his life that he feels he can make a joke out of… or a lot that he could make a joke out of it, but none of it would land very well. Self-deprecation has been a firm part of repertoire for as long as he can remember, but there’s only so much that an audience can take, and if he tries to draw on recent experiences right now, the whole thing would be a mess of it. Cracking open cans of beer at ten am, passing out on the couch, in the tub, on the floor, drunk calling people who never wanted to talk to him when he was sober, let alone intoxicated. 

In the end, it all makes for one sad story.

\---

Richie double checks the address on his phone, squinting down at the screen for the second time in as many minutes, before casting a dubious look back up at the building in front of him. 

He has to go in, he knows, and hopefully sooner rather than later. He’s already spent too much time dawdling around outside, hovering conspicuously and looking as shady as a grown man at a kids playground. It looks like every other building in the town, save for the peeling, protruding sign near the top that proclaims it to be a bar, and it’s - it’s exactly what he was expecting, if he was expecting anything at all.

The snap decision to actually come here tonight feels like a bad one, but it’s too late for that. He’s already texted Eddie and told him he’ll be here, and falling back on that now would just seem obvious. 

From inside the bar, behind the closed door of the entrance, he can hear the steady beat of music playing. It has a heavy bassline, something more akin to club music than a small town bar, but he figures they make do with what they have here. Fuck, he doesn’t even know where a person would have to go to find a club around here - how far out they’d have to travel. Not that he’s considering it. He’s well past the age of desiring to spend his nights sweating on a light up floor with people who have no concept of personal space, sweltering beneath disco lights that are outdated and painfully bright.

He sighs noisily, his lips open and making the sound of a raspberry as the air leaves him, and then he shoves his phone unceremoniously into his back pocket. He isn’t going to waste his time standing here all night, and he sure as shit isn’t going to make the lonely trek back to the house with defeat echoed in every muscle of his body, so he falls to the last remaining option. Sucking it up and going in.

As soon as the door opens beneath his shoving, he’s hit with the strong alcoholic scent of beer. It’s fine. He takes a few deep breaths and finds that the aroma produces more of a nauseating gut reaction from him than anything else, and that feels like a step forward. Nothing about it makes him want to set up camp at the bar and keep the orders flowing in his direction, and it’s only this realisation that has his shoulders sinking down from their hunched position, his fingers unclenching where they had been curled sub-consciously at his sides. Richie hadn’t realised how worried he had been about that until now.

The bar itself is fairly busy for a town that can’t have a population higher than a couple of thousand at most. Not busy enough that his arrival goes entirely unnoticed, though. He groans inwardly as he notes eyes on him, though none of them hold any hint of malice as far as he can see. There’s curiosity there, and he gets it - he remembers it. Towns like this aren’t used to having newcomers. Sometimes, they aren’t welcoming to them, either. Although he hasn’t really amassed any evidence so far that Derry is that way inclined, he knows better than to count his cards too soon.

He keeps his head down as he ventures further into the bar, a smile plastered on that he hopes looks more genuine than it feels, his eyes already searching the building for the only face that he knows. It doesn’t take him long to find it, thankfully.

Eddie is situated at a table in the corner, head thrown back in laughter when Richie catches sight of him. He gets stuck on that for a moment, enough so that it takes him a while to realise that Eddie isn’t alone, either. Flanked by two men, one of which he realises with a jolt is the librarian that he’s come across a few times now, and the other of which someone that he doesn’t know at all. Broad, but short; Richie can already tell that, despite the fact that they’re all sat. Maybe even shorter than Mr Landlord himself.

The nervousness hits him as he approaches the table. Usually it’s not so bad. He knows how to deal with this feeling - he becomes larger than life and radiates confidence that he wears as armor. But he thinks it’s better to be smaller here than it is larger, at least until he has worked out for himself what kind of town Derry is. He feels like that will be a bit of a letdown, really, and not just for Steve. Richie can’t act straight to save his life - never could - and he’s been out for years now; but he can dim it all down if it means that he’s got a chance of surviving. Sometimes, a chance is all that he can count on.

“Richie!”

He doesn’t realise that he’s stopped a couple of feet shy of the table until his attention is drawn by the voice calling out to him. When he looks up, Eddie is looking back at him. He looks both happy and surprised to see him, which isn’t fair. Richie had said he’d come, hadn’t he? Maybe Eddie doesn’t know him like that, doesn’t know him at all, but Richie isn’t one to back down from things he commits too.

Well. He has a few ex boyfriends who would argue with that, now he thinks about it.

Unfortunately, the shout also brings with it the interested eyes of the men that Eddie is sitting with.

Richie feels like crawling back in on himself, his entire frame shifting into something smaller, hands reaching for the safety of his pockets. He shuffles forward with a nod and an attempt at a smile.

“The one and only,” he greets. “Thought I’d come and grace you with my presence after all.”

“It’s good to have you with us, man.” Eddie says, and he’s watching him carefully as he does.

“Here, sit next to me,” The librarian’s smile is disarming, but it’s not the first time that Richie has been on the receiving end of it, so he thinks he does a pretty good job of acting like it isn’t as warm and beautiful as it is. 

He takes a seat in the chair that’s pulled out for him, opposite Eddie and in between the two others he doesn’t know half as well.

“Guys, this is Richie, the one I was telling you about,” Eddie gestures between them all lazily, indicating the librarian and then the shorter man as he says, “Richie, this is Mike and Bill.”

“Good to finally meet you.” Mike says, shaking his hand firmly. “Sorry I haven’t done it sooner. I’ve seen you around the library a couple of times now, but it’s always when I’m swamped.”

“You too.” Richie nods, transferring his hand to the man next to him once they’re done shaking. “I think the old ladies would start a movement against me if I took your attention away from them for one second.

Mike laughs at that, full-bellied and polite at the same time. “Yeah, they take their library time pretty seriously.”

“Between that and bingo, they haven’t got much else sustaining them,” Bill says with a shy grin as he shakes Richie’s hand. “I keep trying to get them to read my book but they aren’t having it.”

“You’ll give them all damn heart attacks, you idiot,” Eddie rolls his eyes. He must note the confused expression that Richie wears, eyes flickering between them all as he tries to work out where they’re leading with this, because he continues, “Bill’s a horror writer.”

Richie blinks, eyes widening. “No shit,” he blurts out as he looks at the man in question. “Denbrough, right?”

“The one and only.”

“My - Steve. He’s a friend of mine. He really likes your book.”

“At least I have one fan.” Bill seems genuinely delighted with the news, even as he quips at him.

“You shouldn’t have told him that. His head is already getting too big.”

“My head is of average size, Michael, I don’t know what you’re insinuating.”

“You thought Ms Hollis wanted your autograph the other day when she just wanted you to write down an address.” Eddie points out. He looks at Richie when he says it, grinning. “Sorry about these two.”

Richie thinks they’re brilliant, actually. He shakes his head, raising his hands. “Hey, the people are weirder back in LA. This is nothing.”

“LA. Shit, man.” Mike’s features look a little wistful. “I bet this is a culture shock.”

“A bit,” Richie agrees, shrugging uncomfortably with the attention suddenly on him. “I mean, there’s no palm trees here, that’s for sure. But there’s also nobody banging on your door at 1am because they’re trying to get in character for a rehearsal the next day.”

They all blink at him for a moment, until Bill goes, “Yeah, okay, Californians are definitely weirder.”

Richie finds himself laughing along with them in no time, relaxing as the minutes pass by and he realises that they’re content with him being here; that they don’t feel as though he’s intruding on this night of theirs. Even when invited to places, he can’t easily shirk this belief that people don’t actually want him there. Sometimes, he questions where he’s being invited along as the entertainment and nothing more or less than that; the one who will crack the stupidest jokes and do the stupidest things, so that the rest of them have something to laugh at as the night goes on. He doesn’t feel like that now, not here.

“I don’t know,” he says, feeling emboldened. “You guys all talk to your neighbours here. That’s fuckin’ weird. What do you even have to talk about?”

Mike and Bill share a look that is not lost on him. Or Eddie, apparently, whose eyes narrow as he catches it.

“Eddie doesn’t get along with his neighbours,” Mike grins knowingly even as Eddie huffs at the admittance. 

“They’re fucking nosey,” He complains. 

It’s clearly the precise reaction that both Mike and Bill were looking for, and they descend into fits of what can only be described as giggles, bodies tilted across the tiny table towards one another.

“My only neighbours here are trees and birds.” Richie moves his chair closer to the table, wincing at the screech of the legs against the floor. “Guess I got lucky.”

“It’s a little lonely up in that big house, though, no?” 

Richie is startled by the openness of the question and the gentleness with which it is posed, looking back at Mike with eyes that feel comically wide even to him. He shrugs awkwardly, furtively glancing once at Eddie who is saying nothing.

“Can’t complain. I like to keep myself to myself.”

Eddie does react then, snorting loudly just as he takes a swig from his glass. Richie looks up in time to see him furiously wiping at droplets that have spilled across his face, swallowing before he speaks. “I don’t believe that for a second.”

“What are you trying to say?” Richie says jokingly. He leans back in his chair, reaching back to rest his elbow along the top of it. 

“You made a dick joke the second time I met you.” Eddie replies pointedly. He’s got a brow arched and his lips twitching at the corners. 

Richie’s eyes light up triumphantly. “So you  _ did _ catch that.”

“Only an idiot wouldn’t have.”

“I don’t know. I thought it was kind of subtle. Unlike my dick.”

“Oh God,” Bill groans next to Richie, leaning forward to press his face into his shoulder. Richie jolts at the sudden unexpected touch, throat bobbing as he swallows but stays resolutely where he is. “You’re literally exactly the same person on stage as off.”

And there’s the kicker. Of course, if anyone was going to know who he is around here, it would be Bill Denbrough, famous enough himself that Hollywood directors are currently fighting each other to bid on the rights for the film of his book. Richie stills, sneaking a glance around the table as his stomach swoops, but both Mike and Eddie simply look back at him, no hint of derision on their expressions. They all must know who he is, but he doesn’t see any pity, and he doesn’t see any disgust. It’s a relief, is what it is, sudden and deep and flooding his body before his posture can tighten with anything akin to fear.

“I’d love to say sorry if that’s a disappointment, but frankly, I’m not sorry for anything.” Richie pats at Bill’s back, grinning when he pulls away from him to reveal a smile that tells Richie he isn’t at all bothered by the fact.

“Hey, you haven’t got a drink. You wanna come -?” Eddie is already moving up and away from the table, dipping his head towards the bar and looking at Richie.

The relief he had felt is short lived by this. Richie knows he doesn’t have to explain himself to anyone, especially not when it comes to the fact that he’s not drinking, but he doesn’t want to feel the questioning eyes and the curiosity that comes with such an admittance. Still, he can’t outright say no. He nods, bumping his knee against the table in his haste to get up, rubbing a hand across the abused skin through his jeans absent-mindedly as he follows Eddie towards the bar.

“I didn’t tell them,” is the first thing Eddie says when they get there.

He’s worried. Richie can tell from the way to tap his wallet against the bar, the downwards slant of his brows that look dangerously close to meeting in the middle with the sheer effort of this frown that he wears. It takes him a while to catch up to the conversation; feeling like he’s missed the first half and entered somewhere in the middle, having to try and pick up the pieces as he goes along.

“Uh…” he says unintelligently. “I don’t follow.”

Eddie sighs impatiently, jerking his head backwards. “The guys. I didn’t tell them who you were or anything.”

“Oh,” Richie blinks. “Don’t worry about it. There’s, uh. Not many people called Richie out there, and I’ve been told I have a pretty recognisable face.” A damn ugly one at that, too, but Eddie’s attention does not need to be drawn to that fact.

“I know.” Eddie frowns deeper. “I just wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn’t me. I wouldn’t.”

“Landlord-tenant confidentiality.” Richie intones wisely, nodding. “Very serious stuff.”

“It is!” Richie can’t quite duck away from the hand that swipes through the air at him, catching him on the arm not all that softly. “It’s very serious. I could lose my Air B ‘n’ B listing if I get caught spilling all the gossip on my customers.”

“There’s no way Steve booked you through Air B ‘n’ B. Tell me there’s no way.”

“...You’re right. The house isn’t on there. Maybe it should be though.”

“I promise you, nobody is searching that site for Derry.”

“Fuck you, man, you have something against the town? You’ve been here two weeks, what’s your problem?”

Richie guffaws at that, leaning heavily against the bar and ignoring the tackiness of it beneath, knowing his skin will pull when it comes away. He notices that Eddie doesn’t dare to put his forearms on the bar, gingerly resting his hands as close to the edge as he can get. 

“Yeah, I do,” he says, words mellow, an air of seriousness that is entirely faked. “My landlord’s a real jackass.”

“Your landlord could kick you out.”

“I don’t think he will.”

“No? You’re sure about that?”

Richie laughs, head thrown backwards. He didn’t expect to laugh tonight, not like this. “Absolutely not, but I’ll take my chances.”

“Richie Tozier, a risk taker. Who would’ve thought?” Eddie scoffs right back at him, friendly rather than rough. 

Some risks are meant to be taken. Others are only taken because the taker is too dumb or too blind to realise that it’s a stupid mistake that could prove to be far more costly than they want it to be. Richie thinks he should be good at working out which is which at this stage in his life, but he still finds himself doing the wrong thing.

Still finds himself wondering whether any of the decisions he has made lately can be classed as good: even the one that’s brought him out here. Though, he supposes, this one wasn’t really made by him. Having someone else to blame is easier.

The bartender reaches them then.

“Oh, I’ll have a vodka soda, please -” Eddie starts, immediately looking back at Richie as he says it. “Don’t you fucking say anything, it’s a good drink.”

Richie raises his hands immediately in a ‘ _ who, me?’ _ gesture, delighting in the roll of doe eyes it awards him. There’s no valid reason for the delight that small action floods within him, but Richie doesn’t think there has to be a valid reason for everything in life. He’s happy to accept what comes to him.

“What do you want?” Eddie’s asking.

Licking his lips, Richie shrugs as casually as he can, tilting back on his shoes as though this will alleviate the sudden heavy weight he feels inside. He keeps his eyes trained on the bartender, smiling emptily. “I’ll just take a soda.”

The bartender nods his acknowledgement and busies himself with getting their drinks together. Only when his back is turned does Richie chance a glance at Eddie. Eddie who seems completely unperturbed by the fact that Richie has come to a bar and ordered a non-alcoholic drink, who doesn’t even bat an eyelid, who just smiles at him.

He doesn’t know why he had thought that this would be so scary. Except back in LA, he knows there’s no way he could hang out with his usual gaggle of friends from the comedy scene and order a soda at a bar. Not without questions and ridicule. Once more, Richie is hit with the thought that Steve kind of knew what he was doing when he decided to send him here. As much as LA is home and LA is everything Richie ever thought he wanted, it’s not the place to be when you’re trying to avoid temptation and make something better of yourself. Something healthier and more likely to make it to fifty than whatever he’s been for the past few months.

It feels like a weight has been lifted, to return to the table cradling a cold lemonade in his hands. He can’t pretend that there isn’t a part of him that eyes the drinks that Eddie brings back for the rest of them with some envy, a desire like an itch that he knows he can’t scratch. An itch that he knows will never be satisfied, even if it gets what it supposedly wants. It’s better to ignore a thing like that, in the hopes that in time it will go away. That’s not usually the case for most things in life but, well, Richie has experience with this kind of thing. It’s not stuck the last few times, but this time he finds himself kind of hoping that it will, for once, and maybe that’s the turning point.

But it’s been two weeks and he knows better than to get his hopes up. He isn’t pinning anything on this being the place that fixes him. After forty years on the earth, Richie knows damn well that he isn’t something that can be fixed, no matter how much he wishes that he could be - that his broken parts could be replaced with newer, working ones. That he could be polished and recrafted into a better working model of the person he is supposed to be.

Human bodies don’t work like that, try as they might.

The night passes easily and quickly. When he’s not thinking, he finds himself having fun; a part of him feeling as though he has known these three people for far longer than he has. They are all three full of life and warmth, welcoming him into their folds as though he is not a stranger to them, never once questioning the lemonade that sits before him with ice melting into the fizzy liquid, even as the rest of them get progressively more drunk as the night goes on. Richie finds that he doesn’t mind like he thought he would. Drunk people are fucking annoying, is the thing. He knows this because he has been one far more often than he would like to admit - drunk people are even more annoying when someone else is sober. It’s, like, a fact of life.

Except he finds himself thriving off their energy instead of letting it irritate him. Rather than it prickling at his skin and bittering his mind until all that he can spill are sour words, he leans into everything that they are projecting, allowing himself to get involved even without that familiar buzz in his head that he had always thought he needed to get to this place. 

He’s sorry to have to say goodbye at the end of the night, watching as Mike and Bill head off in the same direction, both of them with an arm around their shoulders and waists. He thinks mostly that’s to keep the two of them upright rather than a move that is meant to be cute, but it still somehow manages to be the latter anyway. He tears his gaze away, feeling sickeningly emotional enough about the gesture that he may as well be drunk, actually.

It’s just he and Eddie then. They stand outside the bar for a while, off to the side and away from the entrance. The night air is cooling against skin that has been steadily sweating within the bar.

“Thanks,” Richie says finally. He feels a little awkward with it, embarrassed in a way he isn’t usually; or at least doesn’t usually show. “For, uh, inviting me out tonight. It was nice of you.”

“You did me a favor,” Eddie shrugs at him. “One more night along with those two and I’d have had to bang their heads together.”

Richie knows that it isn’t the truth, but he appreciates that Eddie makes an attempt to spin it in such a way. Richie is well aware that he seems a little pathetic and a little sad, and he doesn’t know how to remedy that just yet.

“Well, I had a good time.” He toes at the ground, the honesty burning him on the way out. 

“We’ll see you next week then?”

His head shoots up. Eddie raises a brow at him.

“This is a weekly event. You can’t skip out now.”

It pulls a laugh from Richie. He licks his lip and nods, thinking that this commitment won’t be too much of a hardship at all, really. “Seen as you’re so desperate to get me involved, sure.”

“Who are you calling desperate, Tozier? You forgetting already that I’ve seen your comedy shows?”

“Fuck you, man, that’s  _ art _ . Nothing desperate about it.”

Eddie grins. “You slept with someone who didn’t even have a mattress. Or was that a joke?”

“Oh, no, that definitely happened,” Richie shrugs unabashed, used to this by now. Being genuine whilst somehow being disingenuous all at the same time. Now that -  _ that _ is an art. “But I think that makes the other party more desperate?”

Other party. God. It’s not hard to say  _ him _ or  _ the guy _ or even  _ the man I fucked _ and yet the words get stuck. Even in LA, sometimes, it feels like his throat is coated with something suffocating and sticky, the words catching in this trap before he can find himself in one worse than that.

“Are you coming or not?” Eddie says. He looks like he knows the answer already.

Richie shrugs; nods. No use pretending otherwise. “I’m sure I can fit it in.”  _ Amongst all of the other shit I have to do, obviously. _

“Good. Wouldn’t wanna disappoint the other two.”

“Just them?”

“We’ll see.” Eddie grins, pushing back off the wall he’s been leaning up against with one foot, zipping up his jacket and turning. “Make sure you get home safe now.”

Richie does. Of course he does, because this is Derry, and nothing ever happens here. Even if it looks like the backdrop of a horror movie when he’s walking up that lonely, deserted road surrounded by trees that could hide even the most awful of crimes, he knows nothing is going to happen to him.

Except he doesn’t know that, not really. Small towns and gay men never have mixed well.

He enjoys a sleep that leaves him well-rested for the first time in a while, the warmth of the night following him all the way home, surrounding him like a familiar friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for sticking with me! i'm not entirely sure how long this will be yet, but we're really just beginning... i do promise it'll move a bit quicker in terms of dialogue and relationships though. just trust me!
> 
> thanks for your feedback so far! it all really helps to motivate me, so i appreciate it :)
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m delighted that you’re still alive, Richie.” Steve’s voice is dripping with sarcasm, enough so that Richie isn’t sure that he’s as _delighted_ as he says he is. “But you’re not making either of us any money right now, so let’s not get carried away.”
> 
> Richie breathes out through his nose. He responds bitterly, “I do apologise for how much my breakdown is inconveniencing you, Steve, I really do.”
> 
> The silence only broken by the static across the line lasts for long enough that Richie worries, for a second, that Steve actually might have hung up on him. The worry is quashed with relief that he doesn’t want to focus on too heavily when that proves not to be the case.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a little bit early this week!! thank you for all your feedback thus far, i'll be responding to latest comments shortly!
> 
> warnings for this chapter include some mentions of past homophobia, anxiety, some emeto!
> 
> but have some interaction, too ;)

“Richie, please tell me you have some good news for me.”

Steve’s brusque tone that somehow still manages to have that LA pep to it comes barreling through the phone the moment Richie presses the green answer button. He grimaces, already half on his way to regretting answering at all. 

Meanly, he decides that Steve’s voice has the exact same effect on him that wailing cats have, caterwauling at all hours of the morning. It is distinctly grating and kicks Richie’s fight or flight instincts into play. 

Right now, he’s leaning more towards the latter, features scrunching as he tries to work out whether he could get away with the old ‘lost signal’ trick. Steve would never fall for it, though. Steve knows him too well. 

Richie is definitely regretting being so honest with the man over the years of their partnership.

“Depends on what you class as good news?” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose between his forefinger and his thumb instead of hanging up. “I’m alive. That’s good news, right? That’s gotta be the best news, surely, I know I’m your biggest client, so you can’t even take this away from me.”

“I’m delighted that you’re still alive, Richie.” Steve’s voice is dripping with sarcasm, enough so that Richie isn’t sure that he’s as  _ delighted _ as he says he is. “But you’re not making either of us any money right now, so let’s not get carried away.”

Richie breathes out through his nose. He responds bitterly, “I do apologise for how much my breakdown is inconveniencing you, Steve, I really do.”

The silence only broken by the static across the line lasts for long enough that Richie worries, for a second, that Steve actually might have hung up on him. The worry is quashed with relief that he doesn’t want to focus on too heavily when that proves not to be the case.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Do I?”

“You should.”

Richie grunts a response that is neither positive nor negative, but Steve seems to take that as his cue to proceed in any event.

“How is everything going up there?” He asks awkwardly. “Is it, uh… helping?”

Richie is reminded, then, that there is a reason for him being here. Not that he could forget it, the memories of the moments that have led him here only too clear even now. 

He thinks, distantly, that Steve was hoping that he could come all the way to Derry and be magically fixed within a matter of weeks, but life doesn't work like that. 

Bitterly, Richie finds himself wishing that it did.  _ Just flip a switch, take the pill, swallow the potion and feel okay again _ . Easy as pie. He'd back on that stage in no time, acting like he didn't absolutely break down the last time he was there, blinking like a deer caught in those sweltering, huge spotlights, body still and stuck but for the tremulous shaking that had, apparently, been caught by the audience. 

The headlines the next day had told him so. 

He remembers the build up and the blind panic after well, even though he has tried desperately to forget it. 

He hadn’t been able to see anything beyond those lights, and that was nothing new. If anything, that was  _ normal _ . 

They were designed in such a way that the faces of the audience were never easy to see; a way to make the person on stage feel more comfortable. That’s how he’d always viewed it anyway. You could look out at the crowd below knowing that they were there, but still able to feel as though it was you on that stage in front of nothing and nobody. He had always been content with that. Happy to soak in the laughter and the applause without having to see who was there to give it to him. But something about that night in particular was different. He had felt nothing but dread.

He hadn’t been able to get back on track after fluffing up the first few jokes, his mind painfully empty and his heart a jackhammer in his chest, forceful enough that for one crazed moment, he had thought it might have the power to crack his own ribs.

Still. 

All of that would have been a lot easier to handle and explain away in the following days if he hadn't blown chunks all over the first couple of rows. 

If he could turn back time and change just one thing about that night, it would be that. Not having the breakdown at all would be even better, but he doesn't think he's that lucky, really. If he's being given a chance to fix anything, they aren't going to give him that much power. He'll get greedy with it. Change the whole course of the day and act like none of it ever happened. He’d make it so that everything went crazy good instead of crazy bad, and karma would no doubt come back to bite him in the ass for it anyway, because Richie Tozier doesn’t get that fucking lucky.

No, the most he can wish for is that he could go back and ensure that he doesn't throw up. Or maybe he could throw up to the side of the stage, not on the heads of unsuspecting victims who had paid to watch him be funny, not to watch him vomit, not be covered in the evidence of the fear and pain that he was feeling at the time. 

Fear and pain which, by the way, he still doesn’t understand, still can’t trace to any particular incident or moment. It was just - there. Like it had been building for some time and decided to rear its ugly head when he least needed it to.

It's pretty fucking dramatic, actually, but Richie feels nauseous every time he even looks back on it, so. It's fitting.

The joke goes something like this: the stage was the only place he had ever felt comfortable; the stage was the one place in his home town that actually felt like home; the stage helped him to become the man he is today, though maybe that's not actually a good thing. He figures it's subjective. It depends on who you ask. Some people like who he is, and some people don't, but he can thank the stage for getting him to where he is and he has time to decide whether he’s grateful for that or not.

(He thinks he is grateful, for the most part. His career has been overwhelmingly positive, but this is more than a blip in the road and he can’t pretend it’s less than that).

“Yeah, Steve,” Richie says with a sigh, exhaustion evident. “It’s helping.”

He thinks it might be, actually. 

Derry has gone from a place that he hadn’t known existed, to a place that he hated, to a place that he’s now maybe learning to appreciate. At least a little. 

Steve’s relief is palpable. Richie can feel it from all the way across the country. “Oh, good. That’s good, Rich. That’s great.”

He follows it up just as quickly with: “You’re not drinking, are you?”

“I’m drunk right now, what are you talking about?” Richie knows it isn’t the right thing to say even as it comes out, dull and monotonous. 

He catches his tongue between his teeth, falling heavily into one of the chairs at the dining table. “I - ignore that. It was-” A dumb joke. Something stupid. 

_ I don’t know how to be serious, so can we pretend that this is okay _ ? 

He stares down at the concentric stain left behind on the table top by the bottom of his coffee mug, picking at it with blunt nails absent-mindedly. “I’m not drinking. Wish I was.” He doesn’t think he’s joking this time. He laughs hollowly anyway.

There’s a heavy sigh from Steve. 

When he speaks again, there’s an unexpected gentleness to his tone that makes Richie want to squeeze his eyes shut and fucking cry or something, but he doesn’t.

If he’s going to cry at anything, it won’t be the voice of his agent.

“No you don’t, Rich,” Steve says. He talks like he’s speaking to a spooked child; coaxing but not condescending. Richie wants to hate it. He can’t. “You don’t wish that. Trust me, you don’t. I know this is hard right now, but you’re doing the right thing. All of us - we want the best for you, okay?”

It’s sincere. It tugs at something in Richie’s chest that he had thought was long dead, tissue scorched and blackened by too many wildfires over the years. He finds himself nodding, though nobody can see it but him.

“You getting soft on me, Steve? I’m worried.” He knows his voice is tight and strained, an octave higher than usual, knows that he isn’t fooling anybody, least of all Steve.

“Yeah, yeah, yuck it up. You’ll be missing it when you get back to LA and I work you til you’re begging to be sent to Maine again.”

The jibes between the two help to lead the conversation back to steady footing for them, normalised familiarity, and they wind it up pretty quickly after that. 

Steve doesn't ask about how the writing is coming along, and Richie is glad of it, not offering up any information freely in that regard. He doesn't know how to admit that he still hasn't started yet; isn't ready to feel that extra layer of disappointment directed at him. He vows to have something typed by the time Steve calls him again, even if it's bullshit (which it will be, because he isn't sure he knows how to write anymore). Something is better than nothing, just so long as Steve doesn’t ask to actually read it.

After so long of ignoring Steve's many calls, Richie admittedly feels better for answering this time around. He hangs up secure in the knowledge that he's making some sort of effort, and that Steve won't have any reason to fly across the country to join him here in Maine. 

The thought is a sobering one. 

The house is too spacious for him alone, but it's definitely not large enough to house both Richie and Steve, and Richie knows he'd hate it here if he was here with his agent. Even the thought of having Steve breathe down his neck whilst he sits in front of his laptop trying to find the words to start has him feeling vaguely constipated, a grimace twisting at his face as he tries to think of anything else. 

Steve’s not a bad guy, but Richie doesn’t want to  _ live _ with him.

It's nearing the end of September now, and the cold is really starting to set in, seeping into the structure of the house even. The morning had brought with it a crisp layer of rime coating the earth, and Richie had donned a coat to step out onto the verandah with his usual cup of coffee. The frost had glittered prettily beneath the sun and, not for the first time, Richie had found himself accidentally appreciative of the natural beauty of a place like Derry. 

Maine is a pleasing state to behold, and even he doesn't have the capacity to pretend otherwise, as much as a part of him still wants to dislike this place.

The clock strikes two pm as Richie slides his phone across the dining room table, happy to have filled his quota for telephone conversations for the day - maybe even for the week, considering just how draining they are. He stretches, arms haphazardly thrown out behind him as he presses his back into the chair, enjoying the press of the hardness against the aching muscles in his back. 

He needs to get up and about more, his ageing body protesting at the treatment of being sat doing nothing for lengthy periods of time. He's not used to moving around per se, but his lifestyle back in LA is busier than he had ever realised, only now recognising that because he has so very little to do here. There is a transparent juxtaposition between running around for interviews and rehearsals and public events, following a schedule designed for him, to this - where there’s no set plan of action, and he’s supposed to depend on himself to make all the decisions

Though the air is still chilly, the frost has long since melted back into the ground, the wood of the verandah now heated from being laid out beneath the sun all day. He walks around the whole thing once just to get the blood pumping around his body again, hand brushing over the railing as he goes. 

There are probably hiking trails around here. Not that he’s going to go fucking  _ hiking _ , honestly, who does he think he is? He lives in LA for Christ’s sake, and he’s never even been to Runyon Canyon once.

Here, though, the possibility lends itself more to actually happening than not, because it isn’t like his plate is full with plans.

The call with Steve has had more of an effect on him than he even realised. His shoulders are relaxed, the stress of ignoring his agent now evaporated from where he’s been carrying it across the rigid lines of his body. He should have known, really, that Steve wasn't going to call him just to yell at him and make him feel like shit. For all of the bitching that Richie does about the man (he’d feel bad if he didn’t absolutely know for certain that Steve bitches about him just as much), he has to admit that Steve has always had his best interests at heart. 

The pessimistic side of him wants to attribute that to the fact that Richie helps to pay his bills, but he knows that his habit of thinking that people only ever keep him around to get something from him isn't healthy. None of his habits are that fucking healthy, actually, but there are only so many that he can bring himself to work on at any given time, and he’s meant to be working on a lot right now. This one, maybe, he'll add to the list.

Of course, as soon as he thinks that he shoves the whole list promptly to the side labeled clearly as ‘DO NOT TOUCH’; not something to mull over right now.

It takes him a few moments to realise he’s actually shivering a little from being stood out here for so long, and he ventures back into the welcoming heat of the house in a hurry, closing the door on the cool air. He picks his phone back up on his way through the lounge and into the kitchen, unsurprised to see the notifications alerting him to the fact that he has some messages, a few tags on various apps. Most of them will probably be trash that he doesn’t bother responding to, but not all of them.

Back home, Ben and Bev are quick to keep him up to date on everything that's going on. It's usually mindless stuff, like the story they regaled him with last week of how Penny had slipped her lead and gone straight into the duck pond at the park, but he appreciates it. Especially when the memories are about that clumsy lump of a dog who Richie is pretty sure is just  _ him _ in an animal body. The secondhand memory of her flying straight into the gaggle of ducks paddling blissfully unawares atop a calm water has him laughing to himself again, hand reaching to steady himself against the doorframe.

They also keep him in the know with all the gossip about people he doesn't know or care about, but he's always happy to listen anyway. It feels good to be kept in the loop but, more than that, he knows that they are making the effort to let him know that they miss him without saying it in so many words (though they do do that, too, but they know Richie well enough to know that he doesn't like being made to cry twice in as many weeks). 

The homesickness doesn't leave, and he still finds himself dreaming of long, hot days beneath the California sun, walking around Rodeo Drive with Bev as though he knows anything about shopping and clothes, letting Ben excitedly yammer on about the architecture of this building or that right in his ear. All these things that he’s complained about to no end in the past, that he hadn’t ever realised he would miss if he suddenly didn’t have them.

And then there's Stan, who lives in Atlanta, who sends Richie photos of his little girl knowing damn well that Richie will tear up whenever he sees them, because he still remembers when Stan cried thinking he couldn't have kids, and she's a miracle, is what she is. He looks at his friends and he looks at Esther, who loves her uncle Richie so much that he can’t even claim to understand it, and he knows that he has so many reasons to heal. To be better.

Like, yeah. He knows that a therapist would tell him that he should be doing this for himself, but mostly, Richie thinks that’s bullshit. Nobody’s reason to live is ever  _ themselves _ . What kind of self-absorbed asshole would that make him, honestly. 

He's careful to scroll through the usual social media sites daily, if only to keep up with the only people he really cares about. Ben posts a lot of photos - buildings and Bev and Penny, mostly - and Richie double taps every single one of them, even when he rolls his eyes at how much of a romantic he is. 

Even now, as he looks down at the screen of his phone, there’s another photo of Bev staring back at him, the caption: ‘your hair is winter fire, January embers. My heart burns there too’. 

_ Jesus Christ.  _

Richie has to close his eyes for a moment, head shaking slowly. He could pass it off as disgust, and maybe usually it would be, but he feels a little crazed just looking at that caption right now. It’s nauseating and ridiculous and Bev deserves everything that Ben has ever been able to give her, so. He’ll never be anything but delighted for them. Because Richie understands romance, though admittedly only when it comes to his friends lives. His own love life is a car crash you can't take your eyes off (though God knows he’s  _ tried _ ).

It helps him to feel a little less far detached from them when he can keep up with their lives in such a way. The power of social media, he thinks, and then smirks to himself, because social media has tarnished his reputation and damaged his career more times than he can count, too. Nothing is ever solely good, just as nothing is ever solely bad.

Things have undeniably altered since that night at the bar, just a few days or so ago now. It may have taken him almost three weeks, but Richie feels himself growing inexplicably used to Derry, accepting of the fact that he is here, and just as content with that, too. He hadn't meant to grow to like the place; a part of him hadn't wanted to, still resentful about the fact that he had been shipped here at all, mostly against his will.

Derry, Maine is becoming something far stronger than he could ever have thought it would be for him. It doesn't feel like home. It won't ever be home. The problem is, Richie doesn't know if home is a place for him - when he pictures home, he thinks of LA, but he also wonders whether this is simply because LA is where he has built his life. Home could be the place he was born and raised, but that thought has his stomach clenching. He fled the scene a long time ago and vowed never to go back, and he doesn't think that enough has changed for him to feel as though he will be safe returning to the place that had swallowed him down and chewed him up and spat him out far more than any other place in the world ever had.

People say LA is a cutthroat place. He gets that. He appreciates that. But sometimes there's nothing more cutthroat than a home town that was never good to you.

He tries not to dwell on it too much, not someone who wants to let his past decide the course of his life, but there are some things that cannot be shaken from the soul, no matter how much someone tries. No matter how hard they fight. He knows that the experiences of his youth in that town that he ran from will forever be ingrained in his mind and viewed as a part of him.

Derry is doing a good job of setting itself apart from what he knows of small American towns thus far, though. He’s still waiting for it to do something unforgivable, still peering over his shoulders and hiding shaking hands in the pockets of his coat, but as the days pass, so does the tenseness. 

He's been going into town most days of the week now, even if just to wander around, or spend a bit of time in the cafe or the library or looking towards the mechanics garage without a hint of subtlety to his gaze. 

He doesn't go just to try and get a look at Eddie, even if his mind is a traitorous thing that seems intent on turning on him at every angle. Eddie at the garage. Eddie working around town. Eddie talking sweetly to the little old ladies he vented about in the group chat just the other night. Richie thinks he's in trouble, but he doesn't feel like he's quite yet in a position to accept that. He's been in trouble all his life.  _ There ain't no stopping that now _ .

The library has surprisingly become a place of refuge. 

It helps that he knows the librarian as Mike now, and that he always wears a smile for Richie whenever he ventures into the building. He's been reading more, if only because Mike is always ready with recommendations for him, notes scribbled in writing that is far too delicate for a man of his stature with titles and authors that he thinks that Richie might enjoy. Richie has no idea how Mike knows what he would enjoy, but he  _ does _ \- he checks a book out of the library on the Monday and reads it by the Tuesday, devouring the contents in all this free time that he has.  _ It's a gift _ , he tells Mike the next day when he returns the book,  _ you have a gift _ .

Richie's not been much for reading because he doesn't have the attention span for it, his mind constantly flitting from one topic to the next faster than most people can keep up - but he forces himself to try and still his mind for a couple of hours a day. He has time to kill, and there is only so much that his thoughts can do alone.

The library becomes a place that he frequently visits not just because of the books, but because of Mike himself. He is a strong, calming presence unlike anything that Richie has had in his life. He has the charming nature of Ben paired with the wicked humor of Bev and the witty intelligence of Stan, and it all accumulates into making Richie feel at home. He doesn't admit this, of course, because that would be  _ lame _ , and not to mention putting a lot of pressure on a guy he barely knows, but if Mike grows tired of Richie's presence in the library at all, he never shows it. He might even like it, Richie thinks, especially when he notes how fucking empty the place is on a daily basis.

His semblance of a routine remains mostly unchanged in those first two weeks, save for the addition of people he can talk to, now. 

On the Sunday after meeting Mike and Bill at the bar, he is promptly added to a group chat that involves only the four of them, a chat that he is quite sure did not exist before they met him. There is something bizarrely wonderful about that - this idea that they have created a way for him to intrude upon their lives. He doesn't think  _ they _ view it as an intrusion, but he doesn't know, and either way, it doesn't help to quell his own trepidation about the whole thing. 

Those first few days he is tentative with his messages. He doesn't know what the fuck these people want from him, if anything at all, and oftentimes that is more daunting than the alternative.

It’s hard, sometimes, treading the line between who he is and who he thinks people want him to be. Hard to figure out whether he’s giving too much or too little, until he overthinks it and fucks it up anyway.  _ Sorry for making that weird joke about the dicks and the aliens, I understand if you don’t want to talk to me again _ . He’s been apologising for being weird his whole life.

Richie learns quickly that Mike is a solid and constant force. The calm that he brings with him is evident even in text messages; the way that he talks Eddie down on that third day, when Eddie is ranting hot-headed and blue in the face about some rude customer that he had had at the mechanics garage that day. He knows how to stabilise his friends, and although Richie is aware that he doesn't know Mike nearly as well as they do, it's something that he finds quickly working on him, too. His presence is something he appreciates from the very beginning, the welcoming warmth of him that he first viewed at the bar and is able to somehow glean more and more of through their messages.

Bill responds to a lot of the messages in the chat with memes, which Eddie is quick to explain he has only learned from his younger brother Georgie anyway. Richie considers himself to be someone who is quite technologically advanced and an expert in the language of memes, but even he doesn't know where the fuck Bill manages to find half of the ones he bestows upon the group. He responds enthusiastically to Richie's praise about the  _ 'rarity of his memes, like a good steak' _ , enough so that Richie spends a lot of his time laughing openly down at his phone. The first few times, he goes to stop himself, only to realise that it's  _ nice _ . Yeah, he might look like he's crazy to anyone walking past wondering why a man would be loudly laughing at his phone alone, but it feels pretty good to laugh so he decides not to care anyway.

Sometimes, he feels like his whole existence relies upon people liking him. He hates that he feels this way, the same at forty as at fifteen, but it’s never been something he can shake. He feels like an overexcited dog, bounding up to people and begging for treats, doing the neatest tricks he can in the hopes that he’ll get rewarded for it.

Richie drums his fingers along the kitchen counter, reminding himself of why he is in here at all. He’s still spending too much time cooped up here, and already he aches to leave the house. Not that he’ll find anything new and exciting to do, and most of his days in Derry are spent wandering aimlessly until he finds something or someone that looks like it could be fun.

He rifles through the cupboards and drawers, moving onto the refrigerator immediately. 

Richie has never been someone to make and rely upon lists, and he isn't going to start now; but he documents the things that he has in his head, and hopes for the best. It isn't the most efficient way of shopping, and he's sure Eddie with all his obvious meticulousness would have a thing or two to say about Richie's choices. He’s smiling as he thinks about it, he realises, quickly wiping the quirk of his lips downwards into an almost scowl, inwardly annoyed at himself for it.

The car - which is thankfully still holding on for him, not having broken down again since that day - was frosted over this morning when he had moved down the path to check it out, but he doesn't have to deal with those same concerns now. He's thankful for that, because he doesn't think that he has an ice scraper or anything like that with him, making another mental note to pick one up or order one online whenever he gets the chance. His wardrobe might be prepared for the colder months, but it seems that that is the only thing that is, because he’s an idiot and because he leaves most of this shit to Steve usually anyway.

As usual, the drive into Derry is quick. He parks in the same place he always parks, a space right in the corner of the parking lot which is never all that busy anyway, and he sits for a moment or two in the cab when the engine has been turned off. A plan of action isn't something he is used to crafting, but he knows better than to leave the car without one. He'll end up getting carried away and not doing the things that he needs to do, so. 

The grocery store will be the first stop.

Ms Martin beams at him when he pushes open the door, the bell at the top ringing shrilly to announce his arrival. He returns her expression with a bright one of his own, worlds apart from the reaction he had had that first time he had come here, ducking his head away from her eyes. 

It's strange, how much can change in such a short period of time; how comfortable he can be with that which had once scared and intimidated him.

He takes his time going through the aisles, picking up a good amount of supplies though safe in the knowledge that he is not so far away if he does forget anything. It's like LA in that sense, where there's a store on every corner, and Richie was always in walking distance of amenities - but in LA there's a lot of choice. 

Here in Derry, this is the one grocery store for miles. Luckily enough, it is well stocked and has most of what anyone could need; Richie has been pleasantly surprised on more than one occasion now at the treasures he has been able to find on the shelves here.

He still puts way too many snacks and sugary items in the basket, even though he has been cooking more lately - healthier and tastier meals, his rusty skills slowly starting to come back to him. He has the time to focus on bettering his cooking, and he's using it as best he can. But he needs something to satisfy the hole in his stomach, and if that has to be sugar, then so be it. His body won't thank him, he thinks with a grimace, peering down at the stomach that is already bulging softly over the waistband of his pants. He's never been  _ fit,  _ not even when he was a kid - though he was skinny back then. Nothing more than a beanpole. Looking like a mop, complete with the head of long, stringy locks protruding from the top. He hasn't been as good to his body as of late, but the gut has been present for a longer time than that.

Still. He probably shouldn't tempt fate by letting it get any worse. He vows inwardly to start walking around some more; maybe using the car less to get to places that he could definitely get to on foot, even though the thought fills him with a sense of dread. Richie has never been that into exercise of any variety, a running joke amongst he and his friends - but he recognises that he is, in fact, getting older, and now that he's stopped drinking himself to death, he should probably focus on, like, improving himself now instead. It’s never too late to start, right? He actually thinks it probably is, but he knows at least five people who would yell at him for that.

With a sigh, he puts one bag of doughnuts back on the shelf, but he keeps the rest of the candy in the basket as he ambles towards the till.

"You watching your weight, sweetie?" Ms Martin says nosily, as though that is a suitable question to ask anyone.

Richie just laughs, patting at his stomach. "Watching it increase, sure."

"There's nothing wrong with you," she scolds as she scans through his items. She sounds like his grandmother; probably is a grandmother to some lucky kids in town, and all Richie can do is smile at her as she says: "If you want those doughnuts, you should get them."

"You just want me to spend more money." He grins at her.

She eyes him shrewdly, wicked humor touching at her lips. "I'd be a damn terrible business owner if I didn't try to tempt you, wouldn't I?"

He can't argue with that. Still, he shakes his head. "I'm fine with my lot, Ms Martin. I'll get them next time, how does that sound?"

"Sounds like a promise."

She's a wiry little old woman, and Richie delights in everything that she stands for. He imagines Bev old and wrinkled and imagines that she'll be something like Ms Martin. If she is, he hopes he's around to see it, because it will be glorious and maybe he does want to grow old with his best friends after all.

It takes him some time to lug the many bags of food he has back to the car, and he tosses them all carelessly into the trunk without much of a thought for the contents. The moment he does, some of the items spill from the bags and he pulls a face, knowing he’ll have to sort all of that out when he gets back to the house and struggles to get up the path with them, but it’s a job for later. 

For now, he’s got his eye on the library, not quite ready to return yet.

It still makes him nervous to come here as though he’s welcome. He’s sure he is; it’s always said without words in the smile Mike wears, and the joy he seems to take from talking to Richie and shoving books in his direction, but the intruding thoughts that tell him he’s encroaching on spaces he doesn’t belong is hard to talk down.

Mike isn’t alone when Richie walks in; Eddie is there too, standing just to the side and engaged in a conversation with Mike. It looks like a heated debate actually, and Richie wonders idly whether he should count his losses and slip back out, but before he can actually consider it, he’s been spotted by them.

"Oh, hey Richie." Mike catches his eyes as he turns his head away from the front desk, smiling immediately. "I didn't know you were coming by today."

"Had to get some groceries," Richie explains as he steps forward. He leans his arm against the desk, letting it take his weight. "Thought I'd come and see how you were getting on." 

At this, he looks around at the place that is empty, and turns back to Mike with a wide grin. "I see you're absolutely rushed off your feet."

"Busiest day of the week." Mike cracks back.

Richie looks at Eddie, tilting his head. "Are you here to help him with all these people desperate to read books?"

"Oh, of course. It's not like they need me anywhere else or anything..."

"Oh, I forgot, you single-handedly keep the town running, don't you?" Richie grins wider still, eyes lighting up when Eddie narrows his eyes at him in an imitation of a glare. "It would fall apart without you."

"Damn right it would, Tozier. I'm the fixer, remember."

"So you don't just stand around with a hammer giving the old women something to look at? Shit, where did I get that idea..."

"You sure that's not your own fantasy?" Eddie smirks, quirking one brow as he says it. "’Cause it sounds like a personal problem."

Richie could melt into the earth at that smirk paired with those words. For a moment, he thinks he will, his insides feeling akin to jelly. 

“Damn, you got me,” he says, laughing like it’s all a big joke, rather than the truth being that Eddie has pretty much hit the nail on the head with that swipe. “I’m projecting!”

Mike is laughing then, deep and loud. It’s contagious enough that Richie can’t help but join in, surprising himself with all this fucking joy he seems to be finding in life lately (lately being the last few days, if he’s going to be honest with himself). 

He’s struck with how much his own friends would like Mike and Eddie and Bill, almost saddened when he realises with a jolt that the two groups will likely never have cause to meet one another. 

“You need any more books?”

Mike’s voice interrupts Richie’s line of thought, but he shakes his head. “I’m good. I think you’ve given me enough to last a month. I have the reading ability of a small child, Mike, I keep telling you this.”

His words draw a snort from the side, from Eddie. When Richie looks over, the other man is leaning up against the desk too, opposite him. He looks like he’s been working - a little flushed in the face, his white vest speckled with something that looks like paint. It shouldn’t be enough to leave Richie’s mouth dry, but it is. The attraction is instant every time he so much as  _ looks _ at Eddie, and he curses his own dumb luck. 

Jesus. He’s going to have to get Steve to start vetting his landlords if he’s going to be sending him across the country every few months or something. No more hot landlords. He adds it to the mental list he has been curating all day, every item thereon mismatched and not culminating in anything that would make sense to anyone but him. Which is probably a good thing, he doesn’t know what kind of freaky shit is going on here down in Derry. They could be hiding mutants for all he knows, and he actually blanches at the thought of someone being able to read his mind.

God, he’s a loser.

He's always been a fucking loser. Not much has changed there.

Bev always said there was nothing wrong with being a loser. She was one too, she proclaimed loudly and proudly, her fire hair trailing behind her in the breeze as she tossed her head back and screamed it through the open roof of their car, that time they had driven out of town and across the country to college. Loser is as loser does, and losers stick together. 

Sometimes, Richie wonders if this is the only reason that she has stuck by him all these years. Because she made a silly little vow once when they were both eighteen and dumb and she is too scared to renege on it. But then he looks at her and sees the love that he feels for her reflected in her own eyes and he realises that somewhere along the way, she fell in love with him as he did with her. 

It's still a strange concept to him, this idea that people can love him despite his flaws; maybe even because of his flaws. 

It’s something he’s learning to accept, slowly but surely.

He’s not ready to wear all of his flaws on his sleeve here, not when so many of them could turn a crowd against him.

“Don’t ask Bill to recommend you anything,” Eddie laughs. “He’ll give you a list with his own books on it and nothing else.”

“His books aren’t that bad!” Mike protests in an instant.

“We both know there’s only one reason you’d say that and -”

“You’re  _ supposed _ to be a supportive friend.”

Richie looks between the two of them. 

Their eyes are locked on one another, and though there is a playfulness to their words, they are clearly having some sort of conversation without having to use their words. It’s another silly little thing that makes him long for home; a reminder that he doesn’t know these people, and that they aren’t his friends.

“I wouldn’t mind reading his books.” He shrugs. His aim is to alleviate any building tension, and it seems to work. 

Both sets of eyes snap back to him.

“Don’t tell him that,” Eddie’s wagging his finger at him, eyebrows rising. “He’ll run with it. I promise you you’d regret it.”

Mike rolls his eyes. He folds his arms across his well muscled chest, his gaze flatly unentertained as he looks at Richie. “Ignore him. If you want to read Bill’s books, you should.”

It’s all part of some elaborate inside joke that Richie doesn’t understand, but he doesn’t think he feels left out, either. It would be dumb to feel left out at forty anyway, and whilst he’s not above acting like a child at times, this isn’t one of those. There’s humor that passes between the two friends that he can practically feel, and it’s easy for that energy to pull something from him, too.

“Where is Bill anyway? Does he know you guys are meeting up behind his back? This seems cruel.”

Eddie grins. It’s a move that transforms his entire face, the hard lines softer and somehow more innocent, matching the youthful aspect of his eyes.

Richie feels well and truly fucked. He wonders whether Steve would remove him from this situation if he explained how difficult this few months is going to be for him, living in a town with a person who looks like  _ that _ , possibly becoming friends with a person who looks like that.

The whiskey didn’t kill him, but this might.

“Working on a new book to scare the book club with, probably.”

“You treat all your friends like this behind their back, Eds? I’m scared.” It falls from his mouth easily, the slip of the word not even registering until it’s too late. By this point, Richie is holding his breath, hoping the widening of his eyes is not as noticeable as it feels. 

_ Fuck, you moron. You can’t just go around calling people  _ friends _.  _ He didn’t outright, he supposes, but it was close enough, wasn’t it?

Eddie just stares back at him, that lip quirked into a crooked half smile that looks more devious than sweet. “Maybe you should be.”

And, well. If Richie thought that he was at melting point a few moments ago, that was nothing compared to this. 

It feels a little like he’s being flirted with, but he knows better than to trust his own judgement on this.  _ Small town America, small town America _ . He repeats it like a mantra in his head even as his face flames and his heart skips a few beats. The laugh that he forces out bubbles in his chest but tastes different when it passes his lips, and he knows it doesn’t sound as natural as it should, but it at least doesn’t earn him any curious glances from the present company.

It’s the loneliness, he thinks. It’s this town coupled with this man. There is something in him that wants so desperately in this moment that he knows with great conviction that he cannot consider trusting it. There is no reason for him to feel so weak at the knees with nothing more than a smirk and a smart comment tossed his way, and yet he feels instantly as though he has spent his entire life searching for a moment like this.

_ God _ . He has to get a grip on himself, he realises, and not just because he’s acting like he’s acting like he’s Julia Roberts starring in a lifetime rom com. 

He knows, logically, that these people know who he is - what he is - what he  _ likes _ . Bill had known who he was the moment he had laid eyes upon him, so undoubtedly Mike and Eddie are privy to the knowledge of who Richie Tozier is. And Richie Tozier is, by all accounts, a flaming homosexual.

At least, if they’re basing it off of the better part of his career, which he imagines they are. He cringes when he thinks of early twenties Richie who hadn’t touched a woman’s breast in his life, and yet spent half of every set he did talking about them. There had been a time where he had been scared, and he doesn’t want to feel that way anymore; sometimes, though, he still does. 

Learning fear from those who have been on the other end of something worse. It’s this instinct deep within that tells him to run whenever someone looks at him the wrong way; that tells him to stay away whenever he stumbles across a big group of burly men; that warns him off coming to small towns like this one.

But, he lets out a breath. These people know, right? They must know, and they must not care.

Breathing gets a little easier once he convinces himself of this.

“Are you coming to the bar on Saturday?” Mike’s not looking at Richie, but he’s definitely addressing him. He has his eyes on the computer screen before him, tapping away at the keyboard with his brow furrowed in concentration.

“Yeah, uh. Sure. I don’t have anything better to do.”

“You haven’t found anything better in Derry? I’m shocked.” Eddie snorts, twisting his body away from the desk into an upright standing position. “You’re welcome to join us anytime, though.”

An open invitation. Richie nods enthusiastically, never as casual as he aims to be. “It’ll be the highlight of my week.” He jokes.

Around him, both Eddie and Mike laugh. Richie braces himself against the desk until he realises they aren’t laughing at him at all.

“You say that like you don’t mean it,” Mike says. “But it really will be before long, if it isn’t already.”

Yeah, Richie doesn’t actually doubt that. 

So far, the biggest kicks he’s getting out of being in this town are the weekly trips to the grocery store where he can flirt it up with old Ms Martin, and these moments - with these guys he barely knows but feels like he could, in time. 

Suddenly, a few months doesn’t feel like so long after all.

“I’ve gotta head back to work.” Eddie inclines his head towards the door, already taking steps backwards nearer it. 

“The town depends upon you. Go, hero.” Richie bites back the urge to grin, keeping his tone serious, but he can’t quite stop the twist of his lips when Mike guffaws and Eddie rolls his eyes, muttering a quick  _ ‘fuck you both’ _ as he leaves.

Richie’s sad to see him go; spends a little too much time admiring the view, probably, but he’s hard up as it is and it isn’t like anyone’s really around to see him. Mike is too busy doing his actual job, from the looks of it, the tip tap of the keys still dancing around his head as his fingers work overtime typing.

“You need any help with anything?”

He does look up at that, surprise evident. “Yeah?”

Richie shrugs loosely. “Yeah… better than going back to the house right now…”

He hadn’t meant to insinuate anything with the phrasing, but Mike seems to understand anyway. He pushes himself up from the desk chair, gesturing towards a few trolleys stacked high with books, all pressed one the opposite wall.

“All of these need to be put back on the shelves, so you’d be doing me a huge favor if you wanna get started on that.”

This is not how Richie had envisaged spending his day, but he finds that he doesn’t mind. He gets into a routine quickly enough, only having to pause every now and again to interrupt Mike’s typing and ask where certain books go, but he catches onto the processes easily. 

The aisles are neatly ordered into the various genres - which, honestly, Richie didn’t even fucking  _ know _ there were this many genres of books. There are, like, whole sub-genres dedicated to the romance section alone, and he entertains himself wondering which of these books Ben would like to read the most if he were here right now.

With that in mind, he snaps a picture of the more  _ sexual _ section, the covers open and displaying amusingly sordid images - some poses that he would never even have imagined to be possible -, sending it across to Ben and Bev with a few emojis sprinkled in to add to the flavor of the text: the eggplant, the peace sign, the dirtily smirking face. 

Mostly, though, he just finds it deeply soothing to put the books away, following Mike’s clearly dictated organisation. It’s clear that the man takes pride in the library, looking at it as something that is his, and that makes Richie strive to do a good job, even though he’s only doing this to pass time and keep himself busy.

It’s surprisingly tiring work. 

By the time he’s finished up for the day and waving a goodbye to Mike as he exits through the door, his lower back is twinging and his arms are aching from the sheer amount of stretching to get to the higher levels. 

He falls asleep on an empty stomach, and dreams again of stages. 

Again, there are no faces that stare back at him from the audience. In his dreams, he squints and presses closer to the edge of the stage, trying to find something in the pale, lifeless smooth canvases that stare out at him. His attention is so focused that he misses where the stage becomes air, toppling from a height that seems to have no end, everything falling away until it’s just him and the darkness surrounding him.

It’s three am when he wakes in a sweat. 

With nothing and nobody to comfort him all the way out here, he spends the rest of the night on the couch in the living room, the television lights dousing the room in muted hues, the volume barely above four, unseeing as a rerun of a show he once knew plays out on the screen.   
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, thanks for reading so far! feedback and comments really help to keep me motivated, so if you are enjoying this, i would love to hear from you :')
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Some of the dash lights keep flicking on and off. Trying to work out if there’s an actual problem with the car or just with the electrics.”
> 
> “Ah, right,” Richie says slowly. “You’re supposed to bring your car into a garage when the warning lights come on. Of course. Got it.”
> 
> A loud, clattering sound emerges; similar to what Richie would expect to hear if, say, the wrench had been tossed onto the floor.
> 
> “Yes, Richie,” Eddie’s pained voice follows it. “Please tell me you haven’t been ignoring any warning lights on your car.”
> 
> “Of course not-!”
> 
> “- Good. Because you don’t have to be a _car person_ to know this-”
> 
> “Not lately, anyway.” Richie amends cagily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long chapter for you today, but as promised, plenty of dialogue!! the boys are flirting!!
> 
> cw's for this chapter are some allusions to homophobia, mentions of alcoholics as usual, and a joke about bestiality! not as bad as it sounds!!

There are a lot of things that have happened in Richie’s life that he can look back on and think ‘ _yeah, okay, I understand why that happened to me_ ’. 

He can trace the choices and decisions that brought him into certain situations; like the time he wound up organising Bev’s twenty fifth birthday party with Ben, because he had opened his mouth at the wrong time and then proceeded to say the wrong thing, and he had found himself standing in _Party City_ looking at all the frilly, girly decorations and trying to work out what Bev would want. They hadn’t gone for anything frilly or girly in the end, obviously, because she would have hated it, but there had been a moment where Richie had questioned everything he had done to get him in that position in the first place. He wasn’t a party planner, and he certainly didn’t know the difference between a napkin and a doily - and who really needs all those balloons anyway? It’s bad for the fucking turtles or whatever.

Somehow, he’s accidentally volunteered himself for a lot of strange situations. He can’t for the life of him explain this one, though.

“Can you pass me the 150mm wrench?”

Richie blinks, looking down at Eddie - or the little that he can see of Eddie with him being stuck beneath a car. There’s a sliver of skin teasing dark hairs and toned abs at the bottom of his stomach, only visible due to the lifting of the hem of his already grease stained blue tee-shirt, and Richie focuses on that for far too long. Long enough that he forgets that Eddie had said anything in the first place.

“Uh,” he coughs, tearing his gaze away as his cheeks heat. Eddie can’t even _see_ him, his view obscured by the car, and yet Richie feels like he’s been caught anyway. “Sorry, what did you say?”

“The wrench,” There’s a bite of impatience to his voice, but quiet; like he’s trying to temper it. _Badly_. It makes Richie snort. “The 150mm one.”

He can manage this, he thinks. He knows, objectively, what a wrench is, frowning as he looks around at the array of tools neatly laid out across the bench that lines the wall of the garage behind him. 

There are a lot of tools, none of which Richie is even vaguely accustomed to - the one and only ‘DIY’ thing Richie has ever done was change a lightbulb, and even that had taken him longer than he would care to admit. Still, this shouldn’t be so hard.

Save for the fact that there seem to be many different types of wrenches on display here.

He pauses, hand hovering where it was confidently reaching to the first in the line. He pulls the hand back to scratch at the back of his head instead, tilting it to the side as he purveys the variety of instruments before him and tries to work out which is the best option. It shouldn’t be something that fills him with panic, but he knows what the rising tide within him is before he even has to think about it, and he’s definitely panicking at least a little.

A lot of people know him to be incompetent. Richie doesn’t want _Eddie_ to know him to be incompetent, even if in this area it is very much true. 

Not for the first time in the course of the last twenty minutes, he finds himself questioning how he has gotten himself in this situation - roped into offering services that he definitely isn’t equipped to offer, which he is sure Eddie knows quite well, actually. Maybe he’s just looking forward to seeing Richie fail miserably at working out a 150mm wrench from a 325mm wrench (if that’s even a thing; he doesn’t know. It’s a number plucked from nowhere).

“The 150mm wrench?” He says, to buy himself time.

He can hear the way Eddie shifts on the mechanical creeper, the wheels moving noisily across the floor though not to see him clear of the car, thankfully. Still, Richie schools his features into something a little less confused. _Just in case_.

“Yes,” Eddie replies, sounding distracted. 

A loud clanging sound comes from underneath the car and Richie shoots a concerned look over his shoulder, but sees nothing out of the ordinary. 

Eddie continues, “That’s exactly what I said. _Twice_.”

Richie coughs. “Right.”

He squints his eyes as he moves his face closer to the shelf. Possibly, the wrench will have the measurement inscribed on it in some place - that seems logical, to him. What doesn’t seem logical is having to decipher what’s what from a glance alone. He picks up the first surprisingly heavy wrench, bringing it closer. His eyesight is pretty shot as it is, even with the glasses, and trying to find some miniscule writing on the edge of a glinting, silver tool is pretty difficult.

“Any day now would be great.”

Eddie definitely sounds impatient now, but he also sounds amused. Richie sighs, frowning deeply, before he decides to give in and just admit defeat.

“It would help if you told me what a 150mm wrench looks like.”

“Just like all the other wrenches, except it’ll say 150mm on it.”

Damn. 

Richie wishes he’d looked a little harder before giving up, turning his attention back to the wrench in his hand and tilting it towards the light - and there, on the side of the small, angled tool is a number. It’s not 150mm, but at least now he knows to look for a size smaller than this.

It still takes him a good minute or so to locate the right one, but then he’s moving down to his haunches beside the elevated car, peering under as best he can. “Got it.”

Eddie slides out effortlessly on the creeper, grinning when he spots the wrench and reaches for it with a quick, “Took you long enough.”

It sounds like a ‘thanks’; it sounds like music to Richie’s ears, and he stays in that position watching as Eddie retreats back under the car, even though it’s fairly painful on his legs. 

There’s oil tracking a straight line across Eddie’s forehead, and the image of it is burnt in Richie’s mind even when the top half of Eddie’s body disappears from view again.

“So, uh,” Richie scratches at the back of his head once more, wondering absently if he’s going to end up giving himself a bald patch to go with that ever receding hairline of his. Hastily, he drops his hand at the thought, focusing instead on what he was about to say. “What are you doing again?”

He doesn’t receive a response straight away. A series of clicking sounds fill the air instead, the whir of a bolt being pulled into place by a wrench - or that’s what Richie suspects is happening underneath the car. Truthfully, he has no idea.

“Some of the dash lights keep flicking on and off. Trying to work out if there’s an actual problem with the car or just with the electrics.”

“Ah, right,” Richie says slowly. “You’re supposed to bring your car into a garage when the warning lights come on. Of course. Got it.”

A loud, clattering sound emerges; similar to what Richie would expect to hear if, say, the wrench had been tossed onto the floor.

“Yes, Richie,” Eddie’s pained voice follows it. “Please tell me you haven’t been ignoring any warning lights on your car.”

“Of course not-!”

“- Good. Because you don’t have to be a _car person_ to know this-”

“Not lately, anyway.” Richie amends cagily.

He allows himself a grin as the trolley is wheeled quickly back out, Eddie emerging bit by bit - hard, sculpted chest followed by a tight jaw, lips pressed into a thin line, eyes that are incredibly judgmental. 

Richie’s heart flutters an unnatural beat in his chest, feeling like it might actually grow wings and take flight if he focuses on it for too long. He forces himself to adopt an innocent expression, shrugging at the look that Eddie levels him with.

“I don’t know how you’re allowed on the roads.” Eddie mutters eventually, breathing out heavily through his nose. His nostrils flare with the effort. It’s endearing. 

Richie’s grin widens, teeth on show as the muscles in his cheeks pull to the point of tenderness, but even that isn’t enough to stop his sheer delight at the turn of events from showing upon his face. “But I _am_. Passed my test when I was seventeen, you can’t take that away from me now.”

“You just wait.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It could be.”

“You wouldn’t.”

Eddie grins back then, smaller and twitchy, as though he’s battling against it but failing. “I have my connections. A ticket here and there, and before you know it your licence will be revoked.”

Richie narrows his eyes, bouncing lightly on his haunches. “You’re a bad man, Eddie.”

“Sure,” Eddie says agreeably. “Now let me get back to work.”

As he traverses underneath the car for probably the sixtieth time this morning, Richie gets back to his feet, wincing at the stretch of his legs from their previously bent position. Staying down on the floor like that isn’t good for him in the long-term; but that thought just has him thinking about Eddie even more, the amount of heavy lifting and weird positioning his job requires on a daily basis, and Richie laments for the fact that he is completely out of shape for someone his age. He used to try to _blame_ it on his age, but coming to Derry has made him realise that he can’t really use that excuse for much longer. Not when faced with the abs that Richie has just barely managed to glimpse residing beneath Eddie’s t-shirts.

He has seen maybe two of them. The point being that he knows that they exist and that they are firmly attached to Eddie’s body. The knowledge fills him with both a sense of dread that he is in no way comparable to Eddie, and with a stronger, even more embarrassing emotion that ignites a fire deep in his belly. He needs to pull himself together - how long has it been? Long enough. Not long enough to be ready to fall to pieces at the sight of a few well sculpted muscles and a dark happy trail.

The steady sounds of Eddie tinkering with the vehicle are surprisingly comforting, and Richie turns back towards the bench to look over the tools. He runs his fingers along the rows of them, familiar with the more common such as the screwdrivers and the drill parts, but not so much with the ones that he assumes are specifically for car-related problems. He picks a few of them up to inspect to stop the itchy tremble of his hands, careful to put them back in the correct position.

Eddie is _organised_. Richie hasn’t personally visited many mechanics garages in his time, but the ones he has been to have definitely not looked quite like this.

Everything is also remarkably _clean_. 

Although from the outside the place appears to be like every other mechanic’s in the country, the inside is sparkling; it’s evident that Eddie takes pride in it, that he wipes and dusts and brushes the place down on a daily basis. Everything has its place - from the tools that line the walls and the benches around the room, to the desk in the corner that has stacks of paperwork and boxes all neatly filed away.

It’s not a job that Richie would really correlate with cleanliness and organisation, but it seems that Eddie is a man who likes to defy any and all preconceptions that people might have about him. Richie wonders what that’s like - to know that people have their opinions and ideas about you, but to defy them rather than to yield to them. He wouldn’t know.

The sound of a car engine outside draws his attention towards the open metal doors of the garage, and he steps out into the daylight to get a clearer view of the car that is pulling into the graveled parking area. The car is sizable enough that Richie isn’t sure that it qualifies as a car at all - it’s the kind of car someone who’s overcompensating for something buys, if you ask him -l, and he turns to call back to Eddie over his shoulder.

“There’s a car pulling up. Looks like it could be a customer?”

He can hear Eddie humming, though he can’t see him, and Richie’s hands twitch at his sides as the person vacates their car.

“Can you ask them what they need?”

Again, Richie has to question what he’s doing here; how he has been roped into this. It was one thing helping out at the library to pass some time, but it’s another thing entirely to be here at the garage, when he doesn’t know a damn thing about anything that happens here. Cars get fixed. That’s the only thing he knows about what Eddie does.

He looks at Eddie’s legs protruding from the car, one bent at the knee with the foot planted upon the floor, the other crooked and resting half on the ground and half on the trolley, both clad in faded denim. 

Well, he thinks, he’s already here now anyway.

Stepping out of the garage, Richie moves towards the impending figure, tucking his fingers over the edge of his pockets and hoping the hunch of his shoulders don’t give away his discomfort.

“Hey,” He says, offering up a smile. “Eddie’s, uh - indisposed at the moment… can I help you?”

He can practically feel the surveying eyes that the other casts over him; the catch of the gaze upon his brightly colored shirt wide open over the t-shirt that proclaims him to be a fan of 90’s garage music; the way those eyes shift over him from head to toe. 

Richie winces inwardly, careful to keep his smile frozen in place.

Eventually, the man shakes his head, “Don’t worry about it. Tell Kaspbrak I’ll be back later in the week.”

It’s a relief. Richie’s shoulders relax and he nods exuberantly. “Yeah, man, of course - who should I say stopped by?”

“Bowers. He’ll know who I am.”

The man leaves without so much of a goodbye, which - rude, honestly, but Richie isn’t going to cry about it. He watches the car go back the way it came, knowing Derry well enough by now to note that it’s heading out of town.

Eddie is sitting on the edge of the car creeper rubbing at the wrench in his hand with the hem of his shirt when Richie returns. His brows are furrowed deeply in concentration, the tip of his tongue just barely poking out between thin lips, but he looks up when Richie’s footsteps betray his arrival - offers him a smile that instantly relieves the tension kept in the top half of his face.

“Did you ask?”

“Yeah,” Richie gestures lazily behind him. “He said he’d come back later in the week.”

“Did he leave a name?”

“Bowers? He said you’d know him?”

The change in the atmosphere is instantaneous; the sudden chill reflected only too clearly in the multitude of expressions that Eddie’s face moves through in a matter of seconds, resting finally on something heavier and closed off. Richie barely knows how to read the man as it is, given that they have not been in one another’s company for so long, but this is something unexpected. Save for that first day, Eddie has been fairly open with Richie throughout their meetings and their getting to know one another.

“I’m guessing he was right?” Richie jokes weakly. 

His gaze is careful when he looks at Eddie. 

Something about the dejected slope of his shoulders and the muscles that twitch in his jaw leaves Richie feeling hollowed out, suddenly. It’s a bizarre reaction to have to the discomfort of someone else, someone he barely knows, but Richie feels it so thoroughly in that moment that he has to sneak a hand over his own chest, to convince himself that there is still a heart beating therein, that he is not as empty as he currently feels.

A few strangely agonising moments pass. Richie feels on edge, not quite understanding what the sudden changes mean - though nothing good, that much he can tell. He shifts on the spot, tilting his body backwards towards the entrance - towards the exit. As though giving Eddie the option as much as himself; he’ll leave, if Eddie so requires it, or if he himself suddenly feels the need to flee. It wouldn’t be the first time that Richie has run from a situation.

“Yeah, I know him.” Eddie mutters, eyes trained on the tool in his hand which he is continuing to rub at almost on autopilot. 

Even from Richie’s vantage point, he can see that the wrench is spotlessly clean now, Eddie’s efforts no longer necessary.

Richie aims for another joke, just as weak as the last, but hoping to succeed in lightening the mood at least partly, “Should I have just ran him off?”

Eddie does smile at that, though it’s sardonic in nature and his eyes almost flatly amused. “I’d like to see you try.”

“Next time,” Richie promises, like he’ll do it, like there’ll be a next time. A joke, that’s his intention, but there’s no hiding the accidental force behind it, making it more real than he meant it to be.

Eddie notices, of course. Richie can see it in the twitch of his brow and the way his lip curves down and then up, as though unsure of where it wants to settle in reaction to Richie’s words. Thankfully, he doesn’t say anything. Richie thinks he really would have fled then, unable to save face in the eyes of this man who he doesn’t know but wants to know so deeply.

“I’ll have an ambulance on standby,” Eddie says, and the tension seems to dissipate just like that, with the acceptance of Richie’s not so jokingly spoken vow. 

“Will you nurse me back to health? That’s sweet.” 

Richie’s mouth moves of its own accord sometimes, before his brain can catch up to it and tell it not to. This is definitely one of those moments, and he wants to grab the words from the air and stuff them back down his throat, choke on them rather than let them into the open, but as usual, he’s too late. He braces himself - he doesn’t know for what. Disgust. Maybe something physical. He’s come across both reactions plenty enough times by now to know that he has to prepare himself. Sometimes, the non-violent reactions hurt more than the violent.

They tend to be the ones that stick in his head long after the bruises peppered across the surface of his skin where blood vessels have popped and broken have healed.

“I don’t have a great bedside manner.” Eddie says with a smile. “But I’d try for you.”

Oh. Oh, maybe _this_ is worse.

Richie’s heart has definitely grown wings now - hundreds of them, fluttering in the cavity of his ribs and aching for release. He swallows around the beating in his own ears, aims for a smile that wavers too much. Flirting has always been easy for him - even when he shouldn’t. Especially when he shouldn’t. His mind seems to call for trouble wherever he goes, his mouth getting him into it by being unable to stop itself when it comes to pretty comments (and some less than pretty).

This is dangerous, though. Richie knows how to handle disinterest, or worse: hatred. It’s easy to keep his head down - sometimes, at least. Other times, when he’s itching for a fight because he wants to feel something and can’t seem to fill the hole with anything else, he’ll adopt a purposely lascivious mannerism and approach the people he knows he shouldn’t approach.

He doesn’t know how to deal with this - small town Derry that homes an attractive man who seems to be receptive to Richie’s outrageous comments, even if he’s thinking it’s more _joking_ than it actually is. 

It isn’t as though he hasn’t had his fair share of endeavors with men back home, but this - this is different. This is something tangible, something unexpected, something that he thinks could bite back if he chooses to get too close. 

And yet, already, he can feel what little resolve he has to _stay away_ crumbling before him. Something about sharp cheekbones and doe eyes and stained fingertips dotted with callouses, an easy ‘ _fuck you_ ’ tumbling from between stretched lips.

He hasn’t known Eddie Kaspbrak long, but Eddie Kaspbrak sure knows how to fight with Richie Tozier. He matches him word for word, parry for parry, eliciting some kind of childlike delight within Richie that he doesn’t think he has truly felt for years.

It’s been a few weeks. He needs to get a handle on himself.

“God loves a trier,” He says, grinning with gritted teeth that grind down against one another like a reminder.

“Maybe it’ll be how I repent for all my sins.” 

Eddie has no trouble meeting Richie’s gaze, whereas Richie can barely keep his eyes focused on Eddie for longer than ten seconds. Right now, at least. He doesn’t like to be caught but that’s pretty damn impossible to avoid when someone is focusing so heavily on you like Eddie is him right now.

He shrugs, laughs too loudly. “At least one of us will get to heaven, eh?”

Eddie quirks a brow at that, his lip lifting along with it. “You don’t think you will?”

It’s funny. Richie’s laugh is more genuine this time, but just as loud. “I _know_ you’ve googled me by now, don’t pretend you haven’t, shortstack.”

“Who the fuck are you calling shortstack?”

“Well, there’s only one other person here, and it’s you.”

“I’m of fucking average height-”

Richie’s beaming at this point, noting the way Eddie pulls himself to his full seated height as he speaks, feathers ruffled. It’s delicious. He needs to put an end to this - whatever this thing is.

He won’t.

“Hey, whatever helps you sleep at night, bud.” He says, raising his hands palms facing forward.

"There are _studies_ that prove it!" Eddie's face is all eyebrows and crinkles, forehead creased with the effort of the frown he shoots in Richie's direction, but somehow it sparks attraction in Richie all the same.

There's nothing inherently attractive about Eddie like this - or there shouldn't be, at least. 

He's on his feet now, Richie realises belatedly, somehow having missed the movement - but there he is, stood before him in all his apparently average American height, arms folded across his chest and face stern. The light streaming in from the outside flickers with passing vehicles, shifting the shadows across the dunes of Eddie's cheekbones and the troughs of his brows; light dancing in his eyes like flames from a burning fire.

It's altogether too much.

Richie lets his hands and gaze drop, feeling unfathomably guilty in the moment. It's a feeling he is used to; this worry that has followed him around for as long as he can remember. He will look for too long, or he will look the wrong way, and he will have to pay for that - for these actions that he barely knows he is initiating half the time.

This time, though, it is all too clear, even to himself. He wonders if Eddie notices, then quickly thinks that he couldn't possibly _not_ notice. Richie is too obvious with his desire in this case. If he looked in a mirror right now, he would not be surprised to see cartoon hearts reflected in his irises, and isn't that just peachy? He can't have _heart eyes_ over a guy he met three weeks ago - it's preposterous. Bev would laugh in his face and then punch him in the arm for good measure if she found out.

She is never going to find out.

They've been standing here for too long now, just facing off against one another. Richie shifts his weight around, moving from foot to foot as though it will help him break the silence.

Finally, he settles on, "You figure out what's wrong with the car?"

It seems to surprise Eddie, though Richie can't work out why. It seems a reasonable question to him - maybe not off the back of the latter parts of their conversation, but Richie can't think of anything else to say now that his brain has effectively turned to mush in his head.

He wants Eddie to stop looking at him.

He wants Eddie to always look at him.

"Electrics." Eddie shrugs. 

He moves then, towards the bench where he sets the wrench back down in its place; careful with it as he lines the tool up almost perfectly against those lying parallel to it on either side.

Richie nods, like he gets it. "Right, ‘course... wires and... stuff..."

"Yeah," Eddie snorts, trying and failing to hide it by rubbing at his nose. "Exactly right. Wires and stuff."

"Can you fix it?"

Eddie shoots an unamused glance at him, just barely looking over his shoulder. "I can fix anything."

"Oh, come on, I don't believe that."

"Try me."

"Well..." Richie pauses. He frowns and opens and closes his mouth a few times before spluttering, "I don't have anything for you to fix right now!"

There is something about the steadiness in Eddie's eyes, the quiet inclination of his head, that makes Richie think he doesn't believe him. It's uncomfortable. It's also not entirely inaccurate.

_I'm an unfit, unhealthy middle aged man who likes whisky a little too much and whose career is definitely failing - what's the cure, doc?_

"Let me know when you do," is all Eddie says, lips not quite a smile and not quite a smirk, the angles of which Richie wants to memorise, wants to trace his eyes and his fingers and his lips over.

"And what if nothing in my life ever needs fixing?"

Now this - this is a smirk. One that has enough laughter powering it that Richie can glimpse Eddie's perfectly straight teeth before he pulls his lips back down, like he doesn't want to show too much of himself. 

This, Richie can understand, though not in direct correlation to Eddie himself. Eddie should want to show himself to the entire world; let them marvel at the exquisiteness of who he is. Maybe it's better, then, that this moment is just for them - that Richie can pretend that it is something just for _him_ , even.

"I'm sure you'll find something to break." Eddie says with an air of innocence that does not match his expression in the slightest. He's airy with it, like it's a throwaway comment, but his eyes confirm that it isn't.

God, again - _again_ , Richie feels caught. Like his soul is bared through his eyes though he has spent many years attempting to keep this tarnished part of him hidden away.

He imagines himself chipping away at pieces of his life, smashing up the memories from the past, destroying that which he touches from here on out for the mere chance of having the excuse to talk to Eddie; to keep him close.

It's a treacherous train of thought. It's a _reckless_ train of thought. It's innately destructive and he could only imagine the pity that Stan would surround him with if ever he was to voice such thoughts aloud.

Richie has always been pathetic. 

In recent years, he's become worse at hiding that than he ever was before, letting too much of himself show, letting the real Richie slip out between the cracks of a mask that has been damaged from over use. 

Once, he had thought that it could be a good thing - that being _him_ was the best way for him to live his life. But who he is isn't quite enough for that. Who he is is someone who should hide behind the character curated for himself, because that is the Richie that people want to know.

"Remember whose house I'm living in," he jokes. "I'm not sure you actually want that to happen."

The mention of the house brings with a now familiar reaction from Eddie; the slight wrinkling of his nose, the way his eyes twitch as though he is holding himself back from rolling them with an amount of physical exertion behind doing so. 

Richie still doesn't know what it is about the house, and he isn't sure he wants to know yet; he can admit that there is some fear behind him _not_ asking.

He doesn't think it's ghosts. But sometimes ghosts are the memories left behind, imprinted in the walls of a place, rather than specters you can see with your own eyes. He shudders at the thought.

"Worse things could happen than that house being roughed up a bit." Eddie's eyes pass over Richie without stopping.

He prefers it when they stop.

"I'm going to finish up here, but thanks for your help today."

It's a polite dismissal, but a dismissal all the same. 

There is no reason for it to feel as abrupt as it does, and Richie recognises his own sensitivities enough to recognise when he is being an idiot (most of the time, at least).

"All I did was pass you a wrench," he says easily. "But I'm sure you wouldn't have coped without me."

"I'd have been lost if you weren't here to pass me that wrench."

Stupidly, Richie wants that to be true.

He knows when to cut his losses though, a quick goodbye tossed between them before he's rushing out of the garage before he can convince himself to make this time last longer; to stay a little later.

He shouldn't have even been there at all, but somehow he has managed to waste away an hour and a half of the day with Eddie in the dingy but neat mechanics garage, and that is better than being at home alone, staring at his laptop and willing himself to just _be fucking funny, for fucks sake_. Something that once came so naturally to him now has to be forced, and he cannot draw on any of his recent life experiences without making him sound sad and pathetic and lonely.

 _A guy walks into a bar. He doesn't walk back out_.

Yeah, Richie isn't sure that any of that would go down well with Steve or with his friends, or even with anyone else. He might get a few laughs from the knuckleheads who always preferred his earlier work anyway, but that's not what he wants.

He thinks he's supposed to be reinventing himself here, somehow, but he doesn't even know where to start with that. How can he reinvent himself when he has never openly _been_ himself? It seems like a real conundrum - a catch twenty two, if ever he was faced with one.

Ambling over to the parking lot, he takes his time; one foot in front of the other slowly, buying himself some time before he actually has to go back to the house. 

He had come into town for a reason - well, as much of a reason as he has these days. Something to do with picking up more snacks that Steve would be horrified about and slap out of his hand (" _Richie, your blood sugar!"_ ), and maybe to venture into the library to harass Mike a bit more, but he'd been entirely caught off guard by Eddie.

His fault for going by the garage at all, he thinks, but he hadn't really intended on being invited in and then put to work. 

Richie hasn't actively been trying to put any space between himself and Eddie, but he has been thinking about it; before today, at least. Already he knows that he's growing attached to these people in this town, latching onto them in the way only he has ever known how, and it worries him. That there will be a goodbye at the end of it all, that he will be the one to feel the pain of it far worse than any of them.

But he doesn't have anyone else here, and he doesn't want to cut himself off from people altogether. He thinks he should, sometimes, but Richie is sustained from the attention of others - he needs company and conversations like it's his lifeblood, unsure of how to live in this world without having any of that.

It's only been a few weeks, but he is almost certain that he would have tried to return to LA by now if he hadn't managed to come across Eddie and Mike and Bill; hadn't been drawn into their tight circle by the three of them inviting him whenever they do anything of worth in this dead end town that has very little to offer in the way of entertainment.

Richie doesn't hate Derry, not by any means, but it still gives him the same feelings that his own home town did - still leaves him feeling restless. He doesn't think this is a place he could ever settle; he has to wonder how Eddie and Mike have made it all these years without trying to run at least once.

God knows, Richie tried plenty of times to get out before he and Bev actually made it. He'd dreamed of running away as a kid - not from his parents, who loved him and wanted the best for him - but from everyone and everything else in that place. There had been a few occasions where he and Bev had gotten on a bus and sworn they wouldn't return, but they always had. Something had always called them back. Like the world had known that they weren't ready for it before they had ever known.

College had been a blessing for them both, getting as far away as they possibly could, and neither of them had looked back.

He can't imagine what Richie Tozier would have turned out to be had he stayed where he was. He sees the lives that Mike and Eddie have curated for themselves here, in a place not so far detached from where he once lived, almost a replica of it in many ways, and he cannot place himself into that. They're happy, that much is evident. Richie wishes it was as easy for him as it seems to have been for so many people like these two. Even like Bill, though he had left for some time, returning in the end when he was unable to ignore the pull of the place that he had grown up in.

It doesn't make much sense to Richie. He knows, at least, that Bev would agree with him, and vows to call her later, feeling suddenly jumbled up on the inside for reasons he cannot explain.

Coming to a stop for a moment, Richie takes the chance to gather himself - to remember what he is here for, what he came to do before he was distracted by Eddie and the garage. Truly, he had meant to walk past and be on his way within minutes - maybe say a quick hello if Eddie was around and available. 

He can't help himself, he thinks; even when he knows something is a bad idea, he is attracted to it like a moth to a flame. Perhaps even _more_ attracted to it because it is a bad idea.

Eddie in himself is not a bad idea. Eddie in this town, with this Richie, with the mess that Richie has to untangle and the issues that he has to deal with - _that's_ a bad idea. Mix it all together and you get something that could explode when you least expect it, bringing down everything in the vicinity.

He shakes his head at himself, allowing a wry smile to creep onto his lips where only he can feel it, and then he angles his body in the opposite direction of his car, heading towards the grocery store. 

Already he can hear Steve's voice in his head demanding that he buy something healthy, and he picks up some chips and candy when he first enters as an act of defiance against the invisible agent that talks in his ear incessantly. He does pick up some vegetables and fruit too, because he isn't actually a total heathen, and he does have a lot of cooking to do - cooking which does not involve chips or candy, because he's a grown adult now.

Mostly, he's here for the interaction, Ms Martin having quickly become his favourite of Derry's permanent residents (outside of the three he now classes as friends). He checks in on the store every few days at least, picking up the essentials and items that he doesn't even really need, just as an excuse to see her behind the till and to flirt with her a little. It's been a while since Richie has had a good interaction with someone much older than him; usually, they know who he is and they turn their noses up at his jokes and finding a lot about him to be distasteful, and he gets it - he does. Ms Martin's wickedness is enough to belie any of that in this situation, though.

He idles up to the counter in the empty store, grinning when he sees her expression light up in turn as soon as she spots him. It feels good - it makes him feel warm, to have someone look forward to seeing him, even if it is only Ms Martin.

Christ. 

He needs to speak to Bev, get some sense of normalcy back into his life, if speaking to a seventy six year old woman is proving to be one of the highlights of his week. He talks to Bev and Ben frequently now that he's gotten over that first hurdle of oppressive guilt and embarrassment; sometimes they Facetime, and he gets to see Penny, and the two of them being so sweetly domestic that it makes his teeth hurt from all the way in LA, but mostly it's on the phone - a call here and there. Texts on a daily basis.

Richie still feels _bad._

They love him, they want to talk to him, they want to make sure he's doing okay, and it all feels like a little too much. He doesn't want them to worry about him; it's a shitty job, he wouldn't wish it on anyone. There's so much to worry about where Richie is concerned, and he gets it, because he's living it. There's no need for them to be living it too.

Unfortunately, they are his self-proclaimed best friends, together with Stan and Patty all the way over in Atlanta, and Richie couldn't shake them for the world. Even if he wanted to (which he categorically doesn't, because he's selfish and he loves them and he needs them).

"Are you causing trouble again, Richie?" Ms Martin peers at him with an expression that tells him that he has been standing there dumbly for far too long.

He smiles through his teeth. 

"Oh, you know me... can't stay out of it," he jokes, even though she doesn't know him, not at all, because nobody in this God forsaken town knows him save for the bits and pieces that they have glimpsed over the past few weeks of his wandering around town like a lost soul; or the past few years of comedy shows and gossip news that they may or may not have consumed that tell them not even an ounce of the truth about Richie Tozier.

And that's the real kicker. These days, he can't seem to decide whether being known or not being known is the better option.

He gets his snacks, making light conversation that goes in one ear and out the other, and then departs in a hurry, most previous thoughts of interaction already gone.

\---

The house is cold and dark when he returns, and he takes his time to switch on too many lights; one in the hallway, one in the lounge, one in the kitchen. It doesn't do much to make the space feel any warmer.

His purple hoodie is still thrown over the back of one of the chairs around the dining table - which, _of course it is_ , nobody else is here to move it, unless there actually are ghosts haunting the halls of this place and, honestly, if there are, he feels sorry for them. 

There are _much_ cooler places to spend your everlasting days. Like - the fucking White House, or something. Making the President shit his bed. What's funnier than that?

He chuckles to himself as he tugs the hoodie over his head, catching his glasses by one of the arms just barely before they get thrown off by the motion completely. His mother always hated that. _You're supposed to take your glasses off before you put your shirt on_ , she'd say when he was a kid, tutting and shaking her head at her son with the askew glasses and the apparent disregard for common sense. He can't seem to learn his lesson.

The small or the big. 

This one - this current lesson that he is embarking on, the meandering road with all its twists and turns that make him feel so completely out of control of his own life - is a big one. Feels like it could be life or death big, but he can't think about that. He's spent so long denying that there's a problem at all that admitting that it is quite a hefty one is terrifying. He can't think about it. He especially can't think about his mother right now, because that makes him want to fucking _cry._

A disappointment, that was what his teachers had said he would be. Proving them right feels even worse than he had ever thought it would, because he had thought that he was resigned to doing it - that he had always known that he was going to be a big, fat disappointment, that it was going to be stamped on his head for all to see like a dunce cap. But maybe he hadn't been as resigned as he'd thought. Maybe a part of Richie had actually thought that he was going to prove them wrong.

He could have, once.

Looking around at his current situation - stood in the vast, chilly kitchen of a stately house that isn't even his, in a town he had never even heard of before coming here, with only a handful of friends at the end of the line - he thinks he missed that ship long ago.

\---

Dinner is a quiet affair eaten in front of the television, the channel settled on some ancient black and white movie that Richie might have seen before, but doesn't really know. He can't tell it apart from any of the other black and white movies he's seen, which is probably an offensive way to think, but it isn't like anyone is ever going to hear him say it.

It's depressing, he decides, about half of the way through the movie, stopping with his fork loaded with spicy vegetable rice just before it gets to his mouth.

On screen, a woman is weeping and shouting at a man (the man she supposedly loves). She's got that fifties beauty queen grace about her, a beauty spot at the corner of her lip that could be fake for all Richie knows, and she's really milking this scene. Richie wants to laugh about it - about the _drama_ of it. She's crying over a man she met maybe a week ago, and he's standing there taking it with this somber expression on his face - the kind of expression only men from this era could ever really get away with, with their all american wholesomeness and no-nonsense nature. Sort of reminds him of his dad; or at least of the way his dad seemed to the rest of the world.

He can't laugh about it. The acting is exaggerated and the story line seems ridiculous, but Richie feels her pain like it's his own anyway, until he has given up any pretense of scrolling through his phone and eating, and is instead watching the movie play out with a cushion clenched firmly to his front and his legs spread out before him.

He isn't going to be shouting at the screen for her to _know your worth, girl_ or anything anytime soon, but he does mutter a quick, heartfelt, "Heartbreak's a bitch," and keeps his eyes trained to the television for the remainder of the movie.

Richie doesn't know much about heartbreak, truth be told. Most of it he's witnessed from the sidelines, an outside point of view, but what he does know is that it's never pretty.

When he and Bev had first made it to Los Angeles, she had met a man named Tom who had promised her the world and more. Both of them had thought that he was genuine. Richie hates himself for the blip in judgement now, even after all these years and all those times he'd voiced this exact thought only for Bev to shut him down immediately.

"It's not your fault," she'd said at the time. She still said it now.

But, at least partly, Richie thinks it was.

When the two of them had left home and driven across the country to Los Angeles, that had been _it_. It was them against the world.

That first day on the road had felt like a dream. 

They'd blasted Fleetwood Mac from the speakers, shouting the lyrics to _Go Your Own Way_ together because it felt fitting, because it felt right, because they were going their own fucking way alright, and never looking back. The plan was to make it last - to take their time riding cross country to their destination, enjoying this first taste of freedom that either of them had ever had. Taking side roads that were pot-holed and cobbled and made their teeth rattle in their sockets, their voices warped over the words of whatever song they were singing to at the time.

Eventually, they had sang until their voices had given out, Richie's throat dry and voice barely a crack in the air. They were taking it in turns to drive; his this time around. He'd moved his head to look at her, the window open and her arm outstretched from the car, letting the quiet breeze whistle through the gaps between her fingers, her head resting on the sill, hair swirling orange-red around her face, and he had known then that they were making the right decision.

 _"_ Bonnie and Clyde _"_ , he had joked, nudging her until she'd given up rolling her eyes from the passenger seat of his beat up truck and had dissolved into giggles instead, "except without all the se _x"._

She'd grinned then, stars in her eyes, head thrown back; happiness bleeding into her features unlike anything he’d seen from her before. "You gonna rob a bank for me, Tozier?"

"Nah _,"_ he'd grinned back. "We're gonna rob a bank _together_."

They hadn't robbed a bank. But the thing is, Richie thinks he would have, for her.

He would have killed Tom Rogan, too. _Should have_.

The film credits are rolling on the screen and his rice has gone cold, but he doesn't care about any of that. Not missing the final scenes of the movie, not having to eat his rice when it's at less than its best.

Bev is fine. Bev is _better_ than fine. Bev has actually found the god damn love of her life, and he's a man who Richie has never been able to find a single fault in - though admittedly he might be biased there.

Still.

He leans forward so that he can push the still half full dish onto the coffee table in front of them, reaching for his phone lying there at the same time. It takes all of three seconds for him to call Bev because she's been his number one speed dial contact since they were eighteen (much to Steve's disapproval), and it takes only about ten seconds more for her to answer.

"You're lucky you didn't call five minutes ago," she says in lieu of a greeting, a little breathlessly. "I was in the middle of an orgasm."

"Tell Ben ‘good job’ from me," Richie replies indulgently. "Give him a high five."

"Oh, we already high fived."

"Let me guess - his dick to your face?"

"Something like that."

Richie snorts, resting back against the cushions of the sofa. "On a scale of walking in on me masturbating to walking in on me fucking, how red is he?"

"Still can’t believe both of those things have happened to him - but he's already left the room," Bev sounds jubilantly cheerful. Richie supposes he would, too, if he'd just had an orgasm five minutes ago. "He said, and I quote, he _'doesn't have the capacity to deal with the two of us like this right now_ '. "

Richie hums. "You'd think he'd have gained a better tolerance level after all these years."

"Not for you, Rich. You're absolutely intolerable." She says it fondly, like it's a compliment, and from her it probably is. 

Either way, Richie isn't offended. He knows the truth when he hears it.

"Tell that to my new friends," he says, just so that he can be smug when she gasps loudly in his ear.

"Oh my god, you're making friends - BEN! Richie's making friends."

Very, very distantly, Richie can hear Ben respond with, "Aw, is our boy growing up?"

"Yes, daddy," Richie says dutifully, lips quirking into a smile when Bev guffaws down the line at him, Ben squawking somewhere in the background.

There's some kind of interference on the line, the crackle of it not unfamiliar out here, but he doesn't think it's the signal or the wires. His instincts are confirmed when Bev speaks again, even more breathless than before this time, each breath sounding labored.

"Sorry, he tried to wrestle the phone off me. Please call him that again, he loved it."

"You're mean. What does he see in you again?"

"I have fantastic boobs," she says blandly, and then, "And he likes when I'm a little mean to him, too."

Richie takes the opportunity to get up, balancing the phone on the ridge of his shoulder as he picks up the dish to take back into the kitchen. It's a little difficult to maneuver with the phone tucked under his head, and it takes him a few attempts to get the bin open.

"I knew there was a reason we liked him." 

He tips the remaining rice into the bin and deposits the dish near the sink.

Truthfully, Richie hadn't liked Ben in the beginning - it seems impossible now, impossible enough that he has to roll his eyes at past him for ever having even an inkling of dislike towards Ben Hanscom, of all people. He's relieved to call Ben one of his best friends now, even more relieved that Bev has him - especially during times like this, where the two of them aren't together.

Bev has never needed protecting. Not by the likes of Richie Tozier, that's for sure. If any of them were ever going to get into a fist fight and come out the victor, it was always going to be Bev.

But it all comes back to this, again - that they grew together, two trees embedded in the soil besides on another, their roots messily tangled and inseparable through years of shared trauma in a shitty town. They left together - two hearts on a one way track leading west, crashing and burning as one if ever at all, a handshake with split palms decreeing a vow that they would never break.

Richie's life can be cut into segments, each one of them involving Bev, and it's his duty to protect her whether she needs it or not. She's done it for him plenty of times by now that they both know that it's a system of mutual benefits and annoyances.

That had been his reason for disliking Ben, really. Richie sees it so clearly now - Tom had been gone only a few years by then, and Richie hadn't been able to shield Bev from him. When another man had come along - even one so inherently different to Tom - Richie had vowed that he wouldn't make the same mistakes again.

Maybe he'd gone a little overboard.

Definitely he'd gone a little overboard.

As always, Bev had been there to knock some sense into him - quite literally, with a hand across the back of his head. A painful but clear reminder that she was and always would be so much more capable than him, and far stronger, too.

He's never claimed to be anything but an idiot, it's fine.

"I miss you guys." He says unwittingly.

Richie doesn't voluntarily choose to be displayed so thoroughly, not where he can help it. Sometimes his mouth says what his heart wants to say before his brain can stop it. 

Luckily, this is Bev he's talking to, and she knows the best and worst part of him anyway, has seen him far lower than this, shivering in a bathtub with the shower head running.

He has a lot to apologise for, he thinks, when he gets out of this.

"We miss you too," As ever, she’s quick to respond. "You'd better hurry up and do whatever it is Steve wants you to do so that you can come back home."

Which - right. The writing. The healing. He doesn't know if it's both or either.

He hums for a moment, buying himself time to respond, sweeping his palm over the kitchen counter before him, spraying crumbs all over the floor that he'll have to dust up. "It'll be a few months. Don't think I can speed this one up, Marsh."

She's quiet, then.

He wonders if she knows - she must, to an extent. 

Although Steve hasn't specifically said where Richie is or why, and Richie himself hasn't deigned to spill the truth in all its ugly glory, Bev knows.

After all; she's seen him at his worst, hasn't she?

"No," she continues, finally. "No, you're probably right. You take the time you need, Richie, but don't stay there forever, okay? My dog loves you more than she loves me. I won't have her dying of a broken heart caused by you, of all people."

It's enough to cover over the softness of the moment, neither of them as accustomed to it as they should be, even after so long. It's not hard for them to love (whether that's each other or other people), but it's harder for them to say it. They show it in their own language of nudges and hair ruffles and jokes and dancing around their respective kitchens at two am to the same songs because one of them can't sleep; they've always been able to _show_ it. Richie thinks their love looks different to the love that others are used to, but he supposes all love has its own rituals and hallmarks.

People love differently. It doesn't make their love worth any less.

"That's the tagline for my next show - 'Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier: killer of dogs'."

"That's morbid... you should make it 'Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier: killer of dogs who love him'."

"How the fuck is that any better, Bev?" Richie can't stand her sometimes. He shakes his head. "That sounds like I'm into bestiality or something."

"Are you not?" Bev muses. He can hear the devilish smirk in her voice. "That's a shame. That was going to be my next tip to the paps."

"Just what I need. A bestiality rumor to go with the rehab rumors."

"Is it better to be in rehab for alcohol or for bestiality? It's your call."

"Oh, hm, I don't know, Bev, what do you think? Would I rather people assume I like a good whisky in the evening, or that I have sex with dogs? It's a tough one."

He misses her laugh.

The sheer madness of the conversation is worth it just to hear her laugh like this - full-bodied and reckless with it. Bev's laugh was never very pretty; not her real, genuine one, anyway, but Richie has always thought it to be one of the best things about her.

He’s really fucking gay, but he knows she’d be his first choice if he _wasn’t_. Unfortunately, he doesn’t think that sentiment is returned.

When she's managed to regain control of herself again, she says, "I'll keep this one on the back burner for now then. Don't piss me off, Tozier, this is your warning."

"I've never pissed you off a day in your life," he lies, smiling. 

He's a sap. It's too soft. He's glad there aren't any reflective surfaces around right now to embarrass him by showing him just what he looks like in this moment, just because he's talking to his best friend.

Whatever. It isn't like he hasn't cried over her a hundred times before or anything. This is nothing compared to that.

"I have to go take the dog for a walk before she eats my shoes again. Talk soon, okay?"

"Yeah," Richie says, and he means it. He doesn't know who he ever was thinking he could go weeks - or maybe even months - without hearing her voice and her laugh.

He still misses her when he hangs up the call, but it isn't half as bad as it was before that. He might be a lonely son of a gun, but he's not alone; not really. Physically - yeah, he's fucking alone.

Richie looks around at the empty house differently, now though. It's warmer than it was when he'd just gotten back from Derry, as though even the sound of Bev's voice through the phone has been able to breathe some life back into the walls and the plumbing and the decor. 

What this house needs, he thinks, is not just a little maintenance here and there - which Eddie clearly takes care of - but some _life_ , too.

He's positive that the house was left empty for a while before he arrived, and it still makes little sense to him. But he's here now - it's his for some time, and if he's going to have to live here, he's going to make it a lot less cold than it is currently.

He doesn’t know how to love much, but he can pour that energy into a house if nothing else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for all your comments!! i appreciate them a lot, and as always, i'd love your feedback!
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You've been to the garage?" Bill whistles lowly, blinking when they both turn to him; Richie's expression apparently bemused enough to lead him to continue with, "Eddie hates people pottering around when he's working. He yelled at Mike the other day."
> 
> Richie turns his head to Eddie, aghast. 
> 
> "How can you _yell_ at Mike?" he teases. "That's like yelling at a baby."
> 
> "I didn't _yell at Mike_ ," Eddie scowls at Bill, shaking his head. "Besides, Richie wasn't _pottering around_. He was helping me. You just come over to talk about how badly your writing is going and _not help_ me."
> 
> Their bickering is comfortable. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey! back again! i'm behind on comments, but i'll be responding to everyone soon, thank you so much!
> 
> chapter warnings: mentions of alcoholism, past homophobia, and sonia kaspbrak's canon-typical abuse/manipulation.
> 
> i hope you guys like this one!

It’s surprisingly easy to lose track of the days when they all consist of the same processes and tasks; when there’s nothing to distinctly separate them from one another.

Richie hasn’t ever been very good at keeping count of things: how many boys he’d kissed in darkened rooms with smothered, fearful sounds before he’d accepted that he was as gay as everyone else assumed he was; how many times he was rejected on the comedy scene, kicked out of small bars and followed by jeers, until he’d actually managed to find some success; how many shots of bitter vodka were enough to be classed as too much, how many would keep him drunk when everyone else had already sobered up. 

The days that pass him by whilst he resides in Derry are no different.

Today is a Saturday. 

Saturday is shaped differently now, if only because it used to be spent alone with a bottle of whatever he had in his cupboard, and now it’s spent at a dingy bar in Maine with three other men. Well, the night is. He still has to figure out some way to spend the majority of the day, which hasn’t really gotten any easier, despite the fact that he’s been here - well, verging on a month now, he’s pretty sure. But who’s to say? He’s not counting the day; they slip from him like sand sliding between the gaps in his fingers, and he’s not in any rush to change that.

It feels good to have something to look forward to, though the same thought leaves him feeling inexplicably embarrassed, too. 

He’s still tip toeing that line between strangers and friends with the people he has met in Derry, still feeling as though his presence is something strange to them. 

It’s  _ him _ , he knows. It’s the way he has never felt comfortable in his own skin, the way it always feels too tight for him as though there may be something more beneath the surface just waiting to escape but unable to find the room to move. He’s never felt much like fitting in, and he sticks out like a sore thumb here still -  _ too LA _ , even with the remnants of small home town life seeping slowly back into his mannerisms.

He tries to remind himself that people wouldn’t invite him if they didn’t want him there. Would he invite someone he disliked to hang out with him?  _ Fuck no _ . Sure, he’s hung around with plenty of people he couldn’t stand, but that’s just fucking show business, or something. There’s a reason for it. Living it up in la la land doesn’t come without its sacrifices, brushing shoulders with the kind or broholes who would have kicked his ass in high school.

There’s no reason for these guys to invite him to drink with them (though he cradles a soda in the corner every time and prays that nobody calls him out on it). Unless they feel sorry for him.

It’s an option.

He’d feel sorry for him too.

As if on cue, his phone vibrates with a message, the screen lighting up to notify him that it’s Bill messaging the group chat. 

Richie still feels weird about the group chat. 

He doesn’t ever message first, and doesn’t say too much, responding only to those messages that come from other people and not really volunteering a lot beyond that. It’s early days. He’s out of practice when it comes to making friends, far more jaded than twelve year old Richie was.

And even twelve year old Richie had had problems making friends, but he gets that a little, looking back. Twelve year old Richie spouted nonsense about fucking women in some misguided attempt to mask the homosexuality that seemed to transude from his pores. He was obnoxious and offensive - still is now, actually, but at least it’s in a different way. A more acceptable way, he likes to think.

He's still a fucking nightmare, but at this stage he doesn't see much point in changing that.

The message reads  _ Boys nights!!! _ followed by an assortment of emojis: a beer glass, a cocktail glass, a dancing woman wearing a red dress. Bill is a fucking idiot by anyone's standards, but he's incredibly endearing.

Richie scoffs at the thought of any of them being referred to as  _ boys _ , and the muscles in his back twinge in agreement.

He isn't the only one.

His phone vibrates again, and he can't stop the smile that tugs at his facial muscles when he sees the message on the screen, the icon that seems to be entirely taken up by big, doe eyes and little else.  _ Get a fucking grip.  _ Jesus. Still, he can't wipe the smile from his face and he doesn't really try, either.

Eddie's texted.

**Eddie [03:35 pm]**

_ Who the fuck are you calling 'boys'? You found a gray hair last week _ .

Richie hasn't known them for long - it's this realisation that plagues him whenever he thinks about spending time with them, joining them in their close knit group that has known one another since they were kids. But he already knows how Bill is going to react to that - with a lot of exclamation marks and yelling via text, plenty of emojis and badly spelled. For a writer, he's a pretty shitty speller, and Richie only proof reads his texts once in a blue moon, so that's definitely saying something.

The group chat is a source of constant distraction, actually. Even when Richie isn't actively replying to anything or adding anything of substance to the conversation, it's busy with messages from the others; enough so that he wonders whether this is their only group chat now. But that would be weird, he thinks, right? The idea that they would use only this chat to converse when he's in it - and he's so new to them and to Derry? It doesn't make sense to him, but the amount of messages lends itself to the belief that it really is the only group chat they have, and that's a dangerous thought.

Richie doesn't want to get comfortable here. If he gets comfortable here, that means... it means... he doesn't know what it means, but whatever it is can't be good. It leaves him in a cold sweat just entertaining the idea, like he's going to give everything up and stay in Derry, Maine for the rest of his life doing - what, exactly? Sitting here in this big house, talking to three people a day,  _ not _ writing and working? No. That's not who Richie Tozier is and it's not what Richie Tozier is supposed to do.

He doesn't know much about anything these days, though, including himself.

He takes a breath, realising that there really is a rising panic within him in this moment, and it's stupid - easy for him to shake his head at and will back down. He doesn't panic much, truly. He's become sort of immune to it over the years; spending so long hiding his sexuality (among other things), these days it feels like there's nothing else left in him to panic about. Even when he'd lost days to that blurry space between sobriety and intoxication, even when he'd found himself waking up in places that he couldn't remember getting to (usually just different areas of his house; he's not much of a partier these days in terms of partying with anyone else)... none of that had worried him.

It had worried Steve. And Bev. And Ben. Would have worried Stan too, if only he knew the half of it.

Richie swallows around the guilt, rubbing a hand across his eyes as he all but collapses down onto the couch. It's practically melded to the shape of his ass after all the time he's spent there over the past few weeks, surprisingly comfortable, and he lets some of the stress contained in his body dissipate. He feels tightly coiled in a way that he isn't used to feeling. It's all this time to think. It isn't good for him! He's not a  _ thinker _ ! He likes to talk and, uh - that's about it, actually.

When he thinks, he lets himself think of the  _ bad _ stuff, and although he figures that that's sort of the point - all of this being about getting better and learning lessons and whatever other introspective bullshit practices that Steve has conjured up and thinks will help - but he's resolutely stubborn in this. Richie's never wanted to face his fucking demons, if he could help it. He isn't about to face them in Derry, of all places.

He keeps his hand over his face for a bit longer, scrubbing at the skin there, his fingers pressed against his temple as though he can simply push the thoughts out of his head. For a later time, maybe, when he’s more settled. He knows he's bullshitting himself as soon as he thinks it, knows that he would rather not address any of that for the remainder of his life, but he's not actually that much of a dick. He knows that he has a lot to think about and a lot to work through. He just isn't sure that any of this is really going to help in the way Steve thinks it will.

By the time he's returned his attention to the phone in his lap, it's vibrated a couple more times, and he flicks the screen up in order to read the messages that have come through.

The first is from Mike. 

**Mike [03:37 pm]**

_ You suit gray, don't worry about it _ .

It's interesting enough that it does give Richie pause for thought. T

he thing is, he doesn't know enough about their friendships to decide that the relationship between Bill and Mike is anything more than that; but the insights that he has had so far... well. Richie would be surprised if they  _ weren't  _ fucking, and if he can say that after only a few weeks of knowing both of them, he has to wonder what Eddie would say about it. He'll ask, maybe. In a week or two, if he thinks he can get away with doing so without insulting anyone in the process.

It's innocent enough, really. 

Richie tilts his head as he squints at the screen. He would definitely say something similar to Stan - but then he and Stan have never been strictly platonic, so maybe that's not the best example. He thinks about some of their college years with a snort.  _ Yeah _ , definitely not the best example.

There are more messages then, a 'thank you' from Bill and some playful jabbing in both of their directions from Eddie, and Richie thumbs over the keypad for a moment, bringing the message bar up. He deliberates on what to say.

With most people in his life, he shoots off whatever is on his mind and leaves it at that. No second guessing. No complicating matters. They're used to that from him by now anyway, prepared to deal with whatever madness is going through his head at any given moment - and he's thrown some curveballs at them.

There were a few months in his mid twenties where he became besotted with space - completely obsessed with everything about it. He spent his waking hours consuming all the media and literature he could about the topic, engaging in debates with his friends who humored him but probably couldn't care less about it all; staying up into the early hours of the morning, letting it take over him for that time. It's a problem he has, he knows, letting something become his entire life for a short period of time. Sometimes it's different topics like space or politics or conspiracy theories about early boy bands, or some niche brand of marxism, but it bleeds into everything else too, until he lets his relationships consume him.

Not that he's had many. There might be some correlation there that Richie isn't quite ready to delve headfirst into.

God, he feels like an idiot for spending this long over a text message that would have taken him five seconds to draft if the audience was slightly different.  _ Just write something, fuckhead _ . 

He picks at the dry skin on his lower lip absently, tugging his fingers away and curling them against his palm when Stan's reproachful voice enters his head at the same time. Bad habits. Too many of them to count.

_ Ready for me to drink you under the table _ ? he types, and then hits send without thinking about it.

Immediately, he wishes he'd thought about it.

"Fuck." He mutters, looking at the little green ticks that appear on the screen to confirm it's been read, biting at his lip in place of picking at it, as though that's any better.

The question feels dangerous. 

It's a loaded gun with only a few blanks in the shaft; plenty of actual, very deadly bullets that he doesn't know how to avoid. It's intended as a joke considering they all know by now that Richie doesn't drink - or they think it, at least, know that he doesn't drink  _ here _ or when he's with them. But it's a statement that invites them to dig deeper, and he's not - he's not ready for that. To be laid bare before these people who don't know him. He can barely admit any of this to the people he's known for most of his life, let alone in this scenario.

He wonders if they're sitting on questions. They must be. It's human nature to be curious. If someone came to a bar with him and ordered a fucking coke, he'd rib the shit out of them, because he's a piece of shit. It's not  _ fair _ but it's accurate. He won't be able to blame anyone but himself if any of them do ask about the whole teetotal thing now, but he hopes blindly that they won't.

_ Everyone's addicted to something _ , he used to joke back in LA.  _ Sex, alcohol, drugs - that guy over there's wasted $2000 today on gambling already! We live in a capitalist cesspit of the world! Cut us some slack! _

It had seemed funny at the time. Even now it brings a smile to his face, but it's not a happy one; not sad, either. Some kind of mocking. Nobody had known even half the truth of it back then, but he'd always figured they had and just didn't really give a shit because he was  _ right _ . It was LA. What did people expect?

This isn't LA, and whilst Richie isn't about to insult his new friends and call them backwater hicks or anything like that, he'd hazard a guess that their reactions to his alcoholism would be a lot more overstated. Maybe that's presumptuous of him. Maybe he should stop assuming things about people and give them a chance to prove themselves to be better people than he thinks.

Maybe he'll just go fuck himself instead.

He looks down at his phone gingerly. It's still clenched tightly in his grip, a grip that has only become increasingly more painful as the moments have passed without his knowledge.

**Eddie [03:45 pm]**

_ You'll be shit faced by the end of the night. Soda does that to a person _ !

Typical of Eddie, though he doesn’t know him so well. 

It loosens something that was lodged in Richie's chest; the lack of questions, the playing along. He thinks Eddie gets it a little anyway, after that first night at the bar - the awkwardness Richie had felt asking for a non alcoholic drink when they'd ordered, the tension that had filled him at the thought of Eddie inquiring about it.

**Bill [03:46 pm]**

_ Bouncing off the wall like a kid at Christmas. _

Bill, with an assortment of emojis - his staple - a lot of smiling and crying faces. Richie rolls his eyes but it's a little fond, and he's momentarily glad that he's here alone in this house, where nobody can see him looking at his phone like this all because of a few messages from practical strangers.

_ Yeah, yeah _ , he texts back quickly.  _ I'm chasing that sugar rush. Best high you'll ever get _ .

Probably just as likely to fuck up his body, too, but he's already battling withdrawals from one addiction; he isn't about to try and give sugar up too.

The tootsie rolls in the cupboard are practically calling him, now that he thinks about it.

Saying no to himself has never really been an option for him, so he vacates the couch in order to rummage around for some snacks in the kitchen instead, feeling lighter as he goes.

He hadn't realised how much he had been overthinking the night ahead of them, even after having spent two Saturday's at the bar already - but the chat has confirmed to him that they're still extending this invitation. As always, it beats sitting alone in the house, waiting for some inspiration to write to hit him smack bang in the face.

It gives him a few hours to kill, and he shoves a tootsie roll in his mouth, the sugar clinging to his teeth in a way that is vaguely uncomfortable and a lot disgusting, as he tries to summon up a plan for the day. He isn't getting any better at this, filling his days with anything meaningful, and there are only so many times that he can go into Derry and 'bump' into Eddie or Mike or Bill without seeming incredibly obvious.

But he can manage a few hours.

The laptop remains untouched, and he valiantly tries to forget about his catch up call with Steve that is scheduled for a week's time.

\---

He cleans the house.

Mostly, he thinks it's a task that is going to help him get rid of some time and give his hands something to do, but he quickly discovers that it's hard work. He is fucking  _ exhausted _ . 

There are a lot of things about LA that he loves, but in these moments he's very aware of how much he has taken for granted; the amount of money he has managed to accrue over the years, for example, which has paid for the cleaning services that come to his house on a rotation every few months to do a deep clean or whatever the fuck else they do. He doesn't know - he doesn't stick around for any of that.

Kneeling on the floor of the kitchen with suds up to his elbows and water staining the front of his jeans, he really wishes he'd paid more attention. Cleaning should be simple, but Richie doesn't have a damn clue what he's really meant to be doing, and mostly he thinks he might be making more of a mess than was actually there before.

There's water everywhere and the strong, acrid scent of bleach in the air, that he's trying not to get onto his body but has already failed; there are spots quickly turning white on his tee shirt, and he looks down at it with a sense of dread. He actually likes this shirt - it's obnoxious and has palm trees on the front and says  _ 'Suns out, Guns out'  _ and Bev cackled the first time she saw him wearing it. Now the 'u' in 'Suns' has faded, speckled with bleach from the bucket of water beside him, and the tee shirt has sort of lost some of its effect as a result.

He's barely even started but every single one of his muscles seems to be protesting at this course of action.  _ What the fuck?  _

Everything he does lately seems to make him feel even older, even more like his body is giving up on him well before its' time, and he sighs dejectedly from his position on the cold tiles, reaching forward to scrub at one particularly stubborn smudge with the rougher side of the sponge in his hand.

He needs a mop, or something. He should ask Eddie if this house has any of that, but he's sure the answer is  _ yes _ anyway. The place was sparkling and spotless when he first arrived, and he can't imagine that Eddie is the type to leave a house rental without any cleaning products therein.

Richie is reminded of the fact that he still hasn't explored the rooms of the building, only sticking to those that are open and the bedroom that he has claimed for himself. It's probably time to venture beyond more of those doors, he thinks, especially if it means that he'll find cleaning products (though he already knows that he'll probably find them and leave them for another week or two before even attempting to start cleaning again, after this particularly disappointing start).

He feels like this entire thing has been a waste of effort, but when he looks at his phone, two more hours have passed since the short conversation in the group chat, and it won't be long before he's due to start getting ready to head to the bar.

As a rule, Richie has never really paid much attention to his appearance beyond brushing his hair and showering. Grooming pretty much stops there - he's known since he was a teenager that people would never be paying to see his  _ face _ , and he'd grown used to that concept, comfortable with the idea that, if anything, the way he looks adds to the experience of who Richie Tozier is. It's one of the things about him that has made LA seem like the less obvious choice, not blending in at all or following the rules about looking good, or whatever it is.

It's pretty much a moot point at this stage. Richie knows he doesn't look good.

For some reason, this doesn't stop him from making something of an effort in the here and now. He puts a little more care into what he wears on these Saturday nights, careful to make sure that he's at least reasonably acceptable looking before he leaves the house. It doesn't help that Eddie and Bill and Mike are all incredibly  _ good looking _ , but it's not just that; Bev and Ben are incredibly good looking too, but that doesn't mean that he's going to pull out his Sunday best to go for dinner with them on a Saturday night.

This is different, though. This is a new place with new people and he feels like the efforts he makes here mean something. He isn't sure what, yet.

Of course, there's the stark reminder that it's  _ Eddie _ , too, and Richie hasn't been attracted to someone as strongly as this in - it feels like years, honestly. He squints down at his hands still coated with warm water and bubbles as he tries to think back on it, to think of the last time that he felt that kind of instant attraction; and he can't. It's embarrassing. And annoying. Trust him to get that so-called spark here, when he's supposed to be laying low and keeping his head down, and when he's pretty sure the guy in question is straight.

Pretty sure. Not completely. There's still that nagging feeling in the back of his head that whispers treacherous comments; that questions whether sometimes the things that Eddie says to him are flirtatious rather than platonic.

Richie doesn't know shit about flirting and romance really, though. He's flirted his way through life, but he's never been adept at working out when someone is into him and when they're not, and his mouth has gotten him into a lot of trouble in the past as a result - in his late twenties he had entered a period of his life where he'd decided he didn't give a shit if he got his ass beat, and he'd been obnoxious with everyone and everything. And sure, he  _ had _ gotten his ass beat a few times (only deserving it on half of those occasions), but he'd also learned to carry that attitude on further into adulthood too. Kind of.

He flirts with everyone, is the thing, and half the time even he isn't sure if he means it. It's just something to do with his mouth that he's good at - even when it's over the top and exaggerated and doesn't mean shit. He makes comments that people laugh at, that they cringe at, that keep the conversation going. It never has to lead anywhere.

It’s never  _ supposed _ to lead anywhere.

He doesn't know how to act when that's thrown back at him, though, and he thinks that's pretty evident from his interactions with Eddie so far. God. It's confusing to be on the other end of it, uncertain as to what someone means when they say certain things. He supposes it's karma or something - he's had a lot of that lately, coming back to bite him in the ass for past sins that he's currently trying his best to repent for.

Even with all of that, he doubts heaven's pearly gates are going to be welcoming him in any time soon.

With a sigh, he checks the time instinctively again, figuring he has another hour before he has to go and spend too much time worrying over what to wear (which, really, it's  _ stupid _ , he's never done this before in his  _ life _ ), and he powers forth with the cleaning of the kitchen floor. It won't be half of what he had thought he might achieve, but he figures it'll do.

\---

By the time Richie is done, the kitchen floor is looking spotless and everything else looks exactly as it did before he'd started. He stands in the doorway with his head tilted, looking down at the floor with a strange mix of pride and disappointment settling in his core.

He's not even good at  _ cleaning _ . He's a lost cause at this point, he thinks.

The group chat has been active in the time that he's been cleaning, but that's not so much of a surprise. 

Even when Richie isn't responding, they'll all talk to each other and send messages and memes, some of which he doesn't really understand, but it's nice, he thinks, that they don't bother to hide any of it from him. If he asked them what they meant, they'd tell him because they're like that. Inside jokes are something intimate, though, and he isn't ready to be 'in the know' about the inside jokes that these three lifelong friends keep yet.

Not getting too comfortable is the goal.

Often, he'll wake up to a ton of messages and scroll through them all before he even gets out of bed, and it's become a part of his routine, whereas usually he's only ever checked for notification from Bev and Ben and Stan and Patty. The Derry crew have somehow snuck into his life pretty seamlessly, and it scares him a little, to think that he might have the capacity for more friendships in his life. Closer bonds.

Derry isn't forever, though. The idea wasn't for him to come here and put down roots and form  _ friendships _ , and any of that will make leaving difficult.

He sets his phone aside to focus on getting ready instead.

Despite Bev's insistence over the years that he expand his fashion horizons, his wardrobe still consists of a lot of plaid shirts, jeans, and band tees. He has a few formal shirts here and there for formal occasions that, as a semi celebrity, he is unable to get out of, but he hadn't bothered to bring any of them here. What the fuck could Derry need with a Richie Tozier dressed in a formal shirt anyway?

That being said, it shouldn't take him as long as it does to pick a damn outfit. He takes his standard blue washed denim jeans out of the closet and puts them on the bed; they're a little baggy because Richie doesn't think there's a 'skinny jean' out there that would fit his thighs and, also, he's not eighteen years old anymore (though eighteen year old him definitely did enjoy skinny jeans a little too much). But it is what it is. There's not much out there that looks good on his body - a body that is too big and too large in all the wrong places, soft where it should be hard, and long where it should be more compact.

He deliberates, pulling out a plain navy tee shirt and then ruining the simplicity of it but matching it with a bright shirt with pineapples dotted all over it, tossing them onto the bed as well, and looking at his choices with an untrained eye. 

Bev says his fashion change hasn't changed once since he was a twelve year old, and Richie thinks he agrees, for the most part.  _ Why change perfection _ ? 

It's fun. He's fun. Nobody expects Richie Tozier to show up to their event in a three piece suit looking groomed and well; that's just the way it is.

Back home, at least.

The time spent in the shower is always some of the most enjoyable of his day - and  _ no _ , not because he jerks off, although he does do that too, frequently, thank you - and he takes his time now, letting the water wash away the sweat and grime that has built up on his body after the hard work of scrubbing the floor. He lathers himself in soap that smells strongly of peppermint, washing  _ and _ conditioning his hair - Bev would be proud, he thinks, because she's been telling him to do this for years, and he makes a mental note to tell her. Given that he has very little else to do here, he figures he has time to experiment with stuff like this.

It's good. This. He thinks it's good.

It's good that he's branching out, spending his time here a little more effectively now. Good that he's proving to himself that he can still make friends - or at least some sort of relations - with people. That not everyone thinks he's a total loser, even people who have only ever before known the side of him that is portrayed to the world through his own comedy and the media. 

The importance of everything that is happening here in his life right now is not lost on him, as much as he has been trying to avoid talking about it or addressing it.

So, maybe Richie's still a little nervous as he gets himself ready for a night 'with the boys', as Bill would say; but he's also a little grateful, too. He still feels like an idiot. Calls himself that frequently, whenever he thinks of anything remotely emotional or  _ sappy _ \- more often than some would expect -, but that doesn't stop him from thinking these things. He's always been this way inclined, he thinks. His mother always knew it too.

\---

The warmth of the bar is inviting by the time he arrives - a little after the agreed meeting time, not quite ready to be the first one there yet - and Richie is greeted by familiar smiles and nods of heads, and it blows him away, yet again. A reminder of just how different this is to LA, where everybody knows everybody but nobody knows anybody at the same time.

He'd have hated this, as a kid. He  _ did _ hate it. But now, it's something he appreciates; this idea that these small town people know him, and not because he's Richie Tozier the comedian, but because he's Richie who has been renting Eddie's house out for a month and will be in the community for a while longer still. The distinction is very important, he thinks.

The others are already there, settled into the corner of the room around the table that Richie has quickly come to know as  _ theirs _ . Nobody else seems to sit at it on a Saturday night, because they know that the three of them (now four) will be there, and the idea of something being reserved without actually being reserved is a strange one to Richie. It's nice, though. He likes it. Another thing about small town life that he is coming to recognise and accept, another thing that he once hated or would have hated.

He had never thought that his opinions on small towns would change with age. He doesn't think they would have, either, if it wasn't for this - him coming out here and experiencing it at forty without any real say in it.

"Richie!" Bill grins cheerfully when he approaches, slapping a hand down onto the chair next to him. Richie slides into the seat, greeting them each in turn with an embarrassed sort of grin. "We were just talking about you."

"You haven't got anything better to talk about? Really?" He snorted, arching a brow at them. "Who am I kidding, of course you don't - you're stuck in Derry."

"Keep insulting our town, Tozier. We all know it's growing on you." Eddie eyes him over the rim of his glass, and even though his face is half obstructed, Richie can already see the smirk he's wearing as he speaks.

It sends a thrill down his spine that he hopes isn't visible, turning his attention to Mike instead, who is speaking, following on the conversation.

"We were placing bets on how long it would be before Ms Martin proposes to you." Mike says. "I say a week."

Bill is shaking his head, nudging him, "Give her at least two, man."

Richie looks at them, bemused for a moment, leaning back in his chair easily. "Sorry to disappoint fellas, but she already did." 

He allows his expression to shift into something misty-eyed and a little distant, voice lowly pleased. "The wedding is next Saturday. Make sure to wear your church best and don't interrupt us on our honeymoon. It's going to be wild."

Eddie snorts. "You're sick. She's what, eighty?"

"The older the better."

"That's fucked up, man," Bill shakes his head again. "And people said my last book gave them nightmares..."

Richie latches onto that immediately, "People are weak. I thought it was a kids story!"

It doesn't take a lot to get Bill looking extremely offended, he's learnt; it takes a lot more to  _ actually _ offend him, though. That's a trait Richie can appreciate in a person.

Still, Bill commits to it, pushing his lower lip out and aiming for disgruntled, until Mike shoves his drink into his hand. Even with the annoyance clearly faked, Richie can't help but notice how quickly Bill drops the expression when faced with a smiling Mike. 

Another  _ ding ding ding _ moment; another line of questioning that Richie may or may not gather the courage to follow.

"I'm gonna get the next round. I already know what you're having," Mike gets to his feet, nodding his head towards Richie, and he freezes, waits for the next words that could land a blow, but they don't come. That's it; all Mike has to say on the matter. "What do you idiots want?"

"Hey!" Bill says as Eddie raises the bottle of beer in his hand so that Mike can get a better look at it, and Richie is hit again with this knowledge of how comfortable they all are with one another.

It's reminiscent of how he is with his friends, and a part of him worries irrationally that something will have shifted in that dynamic by the time he gets home. 

It's stupid, he knows.  _ Really _ stupid. He and Bev would never once desert one another, and where Bev goes, Ben goes too. And then there's Stan, who may not be in the same city as them, but has never once let them think for one second that they might be free of him. Thank God. Richie wants nothing to do with a life that doesn't include Stanley Uris.

"Keeping busy?" Eddie turns to Richie when Mike heads to the bar, the question discharged easily.

It shouldn't put Richie on edge; Eddie isn't his agent or his manager or anyone who might have expectations for him and what he's supposed to be doing out here, but that doesn't seem to factor into Richie's thoughts. Mostly, he knows that he  _ isn't _ keeping busy and that that's wrong.

He shrugs, instead of going with the truth. "Busy as I can be without working and by generally being a flea on the back of America." He jokes.

"You can always come and help out at the garage again."

"You mean, I can come and pass you a wrench or two? The  _ wrong _ wrench or two, probably? You're a real saint, Eds."

"Screw you," Eddie says, but there's a whisper of a smile at his lips. "And my name isn't Eds."

He half means it and he half doesn't, Richie can tell, and that's the only reason that he doesn't stop with the nickname. It's something special, he thinks a little crazily, something that just he gets to do.

"You've been to the garage?" Bill whistles lowly, blinking when they both turn to him; Richie's expression apparently bemused enough to lead him to continue with, "Eddie hates people pottering around when he's working. He yelled at  _ Mike _ the other day."

Richie turns his head to Eddie, aghast. 

"How can you yell at  _ Mike _ ?" he teases. "That's like yelling at a baby."

"I didn't  _ yell at Mike _ ," Eddie scowls at Bill, shaking his head. "Besides, Richie wasn't  _ pottering around _ . He was helping me. You just come over to talk about how badly your writing is going and  _ not help _ me."

Their bickering is comfortable. 

Richie watches them, memorizes the way both sets of lips seem to turn upwards like they're biting back a smile, or even a laugh, seeing the spark in their eyes, and it's something so familiar. He gets it, can't remember the last time he and Bev got through a week without squabbling about something or other, and it's a distinct part of any friendship for him. This ability to irritate someone and love them all at the same time.

There's a heavy sigh behind him, audible enough that he tilts his head back to see Mike reapproaching the table, drinks in hand. "What are they arguing about now?"

"Honestly?" Richie frowns, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper. "I couldn't tell you. I think they just like the sound of their own voices."

That gets their attention.

Richie feels a little like a rabbit caught in the headlights with both sets of eyes on him - one dark and narrowed, the other blue and widened in surprise - and he resists the urge to laugh at them. It's evident they've grown up together in moments like this, learning mannerisms from one another, and Richie feels a pang for Bev and Stan, for how they must look when the three of them are together from an outsider's point of view. It must be something like this. He hopes it's something like this, but this feels homey and cosy to him, even just as a bystander, and he likes to think that maybe the friendships he has have that effect on other people, too.

God, he's a fucking sap. Everyone who really knows him knows it, but it's still  _ embarrassing _ to be reminded of it, even when he's the only one thinking it.

People don't expect it from him. He's learned over the years to keep it under wraps for many reasons, that being one of them, and it's a part of him he only shows to those that know him best and love him for who he is; and even then, it's less often than he should.

"That's real brave coming from the guy known as  _ Trashmouth _ ." Bill speaks first, humor in his tone.

Eddie isn't far behind, his body twisted towards Richie despite the table providing a barrier between them, torso bent half over it, "You think I don't know you talk a lot? We all know you talk a lot, Richie, you aren't keeping it secret!"

Richie can't fight the laughter that bubbles within him, delighted in the reactions; delighted even more in the attention he is awarded by Eddie, enjoying the moment too much to feel more than a sharp pinch of guilt for it. "Do you two always bite this easily?"

"Always," Mike says placidly as he takes his seat again, pushing each drink across the table towards the intended recipient.

He's getting used to the soda. 

It's still something that feels weird to him, still something that he finds himself trying to mostly hide, like he thinks people will judge him or query him about it, but each week it's getting easier to not feel bitter about the fact that he's sat in a bar with a soda like a kid. He still feels like a kid, palmed off without alcohol, and he still often craves a drop of whiskey on his tongue, that burn that chases down his gullet and feels too familiar - but he hasn't been close to caving for a while. If he was here alone, maybe he'd be tempted. The more he thinks about it, the more he could see that; himself, sitting at a table without anyone else to distract him from falling down the rabbit hole once more.

It's a good thing he isn't alone.

The conversation turns quickly into something else, into a discussion about their weeks, what they've each been up to. It prickles up Richie's skin, even though he knows they don't expect much from him. It's always the same old story, and he hasn't worked out yet how to change that.

"How's the book writing coming along? Planning on keeping more kids up at night?" He asks Bill innocently, lips twitching when it earns a laugh from Eddie.

"Writing sucks, I hate my life," Bill replies blankly, not breaking until Mike frowns at him. "All writers say that! It's fine!" He appeases him quickly, and Richie's sure that their feet meet beneath the table, but he can't quite tell. "It's slow. It always is until I get inspiration.

Yeah, Richie can definitely fucking agree with that.

It isn't quite the same, he knows - they're writing completely different things and they have completely different goals, but he feels better knowing that even a qualified author - writer - whatever it is, has issues with writing. It's another crutch of an excuse that Richie can maybe rely on in the future when he inevitably keeps putting off the task of coming up with new material, and he'll use it until it's worn out and he can't anymore.  _ My friend Bill - he's a writer, Steve, you know the one - he says writing's fucking difficult, so maybe cut me some slack, okay _ ? Like a kid begging the teacher to believe that their dog  _ really did eat my homework, miss, I swear! _

Nobody really asks him how his week has been - probably since they already covered the question of whether or not he's keeping busy (not) earlier - and that's good. That's great. It saves him from knocking back his coke and smashing the glass it came in just so that he can eat the shards to get out of answering. He has enough of these 'progress calls' with everyone else in his life, and if he can't even fucking drink, he may as well get  _ something _ out of these excursions to the bar.

Bill gets up to smoke at one point, taking Mike with him. 

Richie is half tempted to follow when Bill asks if he wants one, but he thinks better of it, having given up smoking himself a few years ago now. He figures that replacing one addiction with another isn't actually the healthiest of choices, and apparently he's supposed to be  _ all about _ making healthy choices now, so. Every time he makes one he thinks that someone would be proud of him, and it does actually help, a bit.

He's left with Eddie anyway; Eddie who shifts closer, tugging his chair towards Richie's like it's no big deal, like the sudden closeness of their bodies isn't sending Richie's heart into overdrive. 

It's humiliating to lose his cool over something so simple, but maybe he's just harder up than he thought, or maybe his body is having some sort of bizarre reaction to the scent of aftershave and mint that seems to mingle on Eddie's skin, so unique to him and so suddenly familiar to Richie.

He wants to close the gap completely. He knows better. He has more control than that.

It's repeated like a mantra in his head, shaken further by the low level of Eddie's voice when he speaks, pressing into Richie's personal space so as to be hard over the rumbling noise of the busy bar around them.

"I mean it, about the garage," he says. "It was nice having you around."

Richie swallows, mouth dry. "Yeah?"

Eddie smiles. "Yeah."

"I'll check my diary," Richie stumbles through the words too quickly to be casual, even in the midst of a joke. "See if I can schedule the time in."

"Oh, of course, you must be in really high demand out here." Eddie laughs outwardly at him, fading into a snort towards the end, eyes rolling, but nothing about it feels malicious.

He likes that he can make Eddie laugh, whether it's at his expense or with him. He doesn't care which. That's a problem, probably. Distantly, he understands that.

He shifts in his seat, leaning forward instead of back, and carries on speaking because he doesn't know when to stop. "You could always come up to the house, you know, if you're so desperate to spend time with me."

Their arms brush as Eddie moves; not far away and not closer, either. He just - shifts slightly. 

Richie can feel his arm burn through the shirt where their skin would meet if not for the layers between them, and he wishes them gone in the moment. Evaporated. Skin and skin. 

Only he's not a fucking wizard, so the clothes remain, and then it's just him, waiting for Eddie's reaction, waiting to see whether he'll say anything more or pull back completely.

It takes a moment. Long enough for Richie to consider that he may have really fucked up this time.

Eddie sighs softly, brow creased. "I don't know if you've noticed...but I really hate that house." 

The last words come out on a breath that's almost a laugh but doesn't quite get there, like it doesn't have the joy behind it to really become one.

Which - of course Richie has noticed. He doesn't know if he  _ should _ have noticed, though. Is it weird? Or is Eddie just obvious about it? He doesn't know which is the better option here.

"Kinda got that vibe, yeah," he says in the end, keeping it light but careful.

Eddie doesn't say anything, his eyes trained down on the table like he can't bear to look at Richie right now, and Richie hates that. He isn't sure that he understands any of what's going on or how they got from A to B in this scenario, but he knows he definitely doesn't like to see Eddie looking so downcast. Especially where he's concerned.

He wants the laughter back, he thinks blindly, but he doesn't think he's going to be able to get that right now.

He clenches his fist beneath the table and releases it. "Do you want to, uh... talk about it?"

It does make Eddie laugh, actually, but not in the way that Richie wants. It's an empty, rough edged sound.

"Not really," Eddie says. "But I should tell you, huh? I probably owe you that."

And if there's anything that Richie knows, it's that nobody owes him shit. He says as much. 

"You don't owe anyone shit, man. I'm offering for  _ you _ ."

There's a part of Richie that's curious, but he figures that's natural. It's not the main reasoning for him awkwardly offering to listen to Eddie here, in this setting of all places, and if Eddie told him to go fuck himself, he'd do exactly that. It isn't any of his business. But there's something about the sunken line of Eddie's frame, like he can't quite keep it up any longer; something about the shifting eyes that speaks of wanting to tell Richie about it, at least a little. 

Maybe. Maybe not. Richie doesn't know anything.

"It was my mom's house." Eddie says finally, and he doesn't say anything more for a while. 

They both stay quiet - Richie waiting and Eddie seemingly mustering himself up for whatever else he has to say.

It looks like it takes a lot. 

If it were Bev, Richie would have his arm around her by now, his face in her hair, his lips on her forehead - he knows how to comfort people, but he only allows himself to comfort people that he thinks want that from him.

"I lived there for a while," he continues. He fiddles with the bottle in his hand, fingers curled around the neck of it, blanching white with the ferocity of the grip. It looks like it could break, glass spider webbing before it cracks completely, something strangely delicate in the pattern. "My mom wasn't, uh - a good person? No, she was a fucking nightmare, actually. Like, everything you think a mom should be - well, she wasn't that. She was the opposite of that."

Richie feels frozen again, but this time it's for Eddie and not for him. 

A million thoughts suddenly echo around his mind, ideas and images and phrases that all speak of awful, horrible things, and he wonders just what Eddie must have gone through at the hands of someone who was supposed to love him so fully and so purely.

There's a lot that can be said about the Tozier's, but Richie never once doubted his parents' love for him. Even his father, who was sometimes gruff and not always the best with anything remotely emotional, leaving that to Maggie wherever she could - even he loved him. Even after everything.

He swallows, throat clicking as he tries to think of what to say, but it doesn't matter because Eddie is still speaking - almost as though he doesn't want to stop now that he's started.

"I inherited the house after she died, but I couldn't live there. It still felt like hers. Still does, actually - sorry, that's probably creepy for you. Is that creepy for you?" He flicks a gaze to Richie, looking a little concerned and a little caught, and then doesn't wait for an answer. "I was supposed to live there. I guess. That was what she wanted me to do with it, obviously, but I couldn't. I haven't set foot in there for years."

This admittance is what really brings it home. 

Richie feels his eyes widen in shock at the thought of the large, old, empty house on the hill without any life in it, but it makes sense. It slides into place, the puzzles that he has not been able to crack since he has moved in, and now he feels like he has more of the picture before him.

It's as though Eddie can read his mind. 

"I send people in to clean and stuff," he says quickly. "But I don't go in there myself."

“How long?” Richie hears himself asking around a dry throat. “How long has it been?”

The fact that it takes Eddie a few moments to work it out is the most telling thing.

Eventually, he says, “Six years, maybe? I stopped going after she died.”

Six years.

Richie whistles lowly. It’s a long time for a home to be left vacant; a long time for Eddie to be holding himself back from it. 

Whatever memories he has of that place, they have clearly fucked him up.

In a way, Richie gets it - probably more than Eddie realises. A home or a hometown: everyone has their own haunted places, where ghosts of themselves wander without closure.

“I get it,” he shrugs, running his fingers through the condensation that drips down one of the glasses left at the table, distracted. “Makes sense that you don’t wanna go there, man. Nothing wrong with that.”

The smile Eddie throws him is humorless. “Maybe not… don’t think she’d see it that way.”

“But she’s not here. I mean - sorry, I shouldn’t -”

“No, you’re right. It’s fine, Richie, she’s dead. You can say she’s dead.”

“Well, what does it matter what she’d think?”

“I don’t know,” Eddie sighs loudly after a while. “It shouldn’t matter, but it still does. Wish I fucking knew why.”

Richie wipes the wetness on his fingers away, rubbing it across his shirt. He thinks about the choices he made when he left, how he always thought of his parents - what they would think. Whether they would approve or not. 

He nods. “Probably just another way for the higher power to hurt us even when people are gone.”

Another joke that lends itself too much to honesty. He winces, rapping his knuckles across the table. “Fuck that house.”

The expression on Eddie’s face shifts into something startled; and then almost relieved. He leans closer, shoulder brushing firmly against Richie’s and sending more sparks through him. He wonders if Eddie feels them too.

“Yeah,” Eddie agrees with a grin. “ _ Fuck _ that house, man.”

Richie opens his mouth to say something - his brain running a mile a minute, but he thinks he means to say something about himself. Offering honesty for honesty, a secret for a secret. About his hometown, how much he hated it and the people it shielded, how painful being there had been and how painful leaving had been, too.

Instead, Mike and Bill come back in a moment of chaos, loud and chattering and laughing, immediately drawing attention to themselves and sliding back into their place upon the table.

Probably for the best. Richie can’t decide whether to be grateful or disappointed; a strange mixture of both causing him to smile lopsidedly.

The night continues without further revelations.

Later, when Richie returns to the house in the trees, he flies up the stairs; sees shadows shifting in his peripheral vision, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up to attention.

_ Stupid _ , he thinks, with the sheets tucked under his neck and his eyes shifting around the room. Stupid, but he doesn’t sleep well all the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading! your comments and kudos etc. mean a lot, so please feel free to leave your feedback, and your thoughts on how things are going!
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading so far! feedback and comments really help to keep me motivated, so if you enjoyed this, i would love to hear from you :')
> 
> you can find me on twitter [@decdlights](https://twitter.com/decdlights) (where i'm most active) and also on tumblr [@lndntown](https://lndntown.tumblr.com/), if you fancy following me/chatting to me!


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